Of Psychics and FBI Profilers
by htewing
Summary: SSA David Rossi hates psychics. But when the BAU is called in for a case in Santa Barbara involving murdered cops, Chief Vick insists on using all her resources, including a certain psychic detective. T for some language and some torture. Xover CM/Psych
1. Prologue

A/N: This is the first fic I've written for any TV show and it just happens to be a crossover. Go figure. I'm trying to keep everyone in the story and in character enough, and hopefully I'm succeeding. The exception may be Reid in later chapters but . . . you'll see why. *evil cackle* Enjoy.

Oh yes. And I own nothing. Nadda. Although I sometimes wish I did. . .

"_It's Painful. It really makes being a psychic seem boring."_

_- Daniel Fiendberg_

**Prologue**

_Santa Barbara, 1987_

"Dad, who are those guys?"

Henry hadn't wanted to bring Shawn down to the station. Especially not in the middle of a high-profile serial killer case. But it hadn't really been a choice when he'd been called to the school and informed that he needed to actually _pick up_ his son for this month's particular suspension. That had resulted in Shawn taking refuge at Henry's desk and sitting sullenly. So the appearance of two men with guns in full suits had been a great distraction. Henry stopped as he was walking by the desk.

"They're the FBI, Shawn. That doesn't mean you can move."

"Oooh. What do they do?"

"They're what're called _profilers_. They look inside peoples' heads and try to figure out who they are." For emphasis, Henry poked Shawn's forehead. "So don't make me bring them over here and profile you."

"You'd do that dad?" Shawn seemed ecstatic.

"Absolutely not." Shawn's face fell. "Now sit there and if I see you out of this chair . . ." he left the threat hanging as he hurried off to the duo of agents.


	2. Chapter 1: Of Psychics

Still own nothing. Sadly.

***

**Chapter 1: Of Psychics . . . **

"Lassie-face!"

If there was one single voice he'd wanted to hear today, it was _not_ that one.

Santa Barbara Police Department Head Detective Carlton Lassiter was not having a good day, and the appearance of the man at the very bottom of his long "detest" list, placing somewhere under professional criminals and repeat offenders, was about to make it worse.

"Spencer . . ." Lassiter tried to make the usually apparent threatening tone in his voice further apparent to head the annoying pestilence off.

"Did someone not drink their pineapple happy-juice toda – ooh! Is that the missing cops case?"

"Spencer!" Lassiter half-yelled.

Meanwhile, the SBPD's unofficial faux-psychic skimmed the board. Three missing people who worked in some way for the department had disappeared two days before, and Shawn Spencer knew that Lassiter had been working himself to death to find them. Judging by the crime scene photos that had taken over part of the board, Shawn figured that they had, at least, found them in some capacity.

"I got the check," Shawn's cohort and professional sense of seriousness Burton "Gus" Guster came up behind him. "We still need to talk to the Chief and get her to –" He glanced up at the furious head detective, who was busily hauling Shawn back towards the desk. He looked over at the board and caught a glimpse of the crime scene photos, and decided to beat a hasty retreat after the pair. He ended up by the front desk just in time to catch the end of Lassiter's lecture.

"—lost three good men today, Spencer! I do not have time for your damned theatrics and fool vibrations! Let the real police take care of this!"

"Lassiter!" Chief Karen Vick's voice boomed behind him. "My office."

Lassiter stormed past Gus and into the blind-enclosed office after the chief.

"Man, what was that about?" Gus asked.

"Lassie's taking this case pretty hard," Shawn said, watching his angry departure. "And I mean, really hard."

"Losing three detectives will do that."

"I suppose so. Although one of them was just a security guard at the jewelry store about two blocks down."

Gus glared at him. "Now how did you know that?"

"I'm a _psychic_, Gus, remember?" Shawn put his fingers at his temple and wiggled his eyebrows. Gus glared at him more. "Don't give me that look."

"Shawn, if you haven't realized, I don't think we're going to be invited on this one."

"Oh, contraire," Shawn said, then suddenly dropping into his more serious manner. "This is only going to get worse. I mean, a security guard? It's a far leap from that to a cop. And then you've got the added bonus of taking three of them at once, all on the same day."

"That is pretty dangerous."

"Plus, they're all armed, and their weapons weren't found, which means he's taking trophies."

"So there might be a serial killer? Again?" At Shawn's look Gus shrugged. "Well, Mr. Yang _was_ a serial killer."

"Is it technically Mr. Yang anymore, though? After all, 'he' did turn into a 'she.' So would it then be Mr. and Mrs. Yang?"

Gus shrugged as a sudden explosion of voices erupted from the chief's office, silencing the entire department. Even Lassiter's steadfast partner and one of Shawn's reasons for visiting the station, junior detective Juliet O'Hara, stopped dead as she walked through the doors.

"Is that Lassie yelling at the chief?" Gus asked, wide-mouthed.

"Only one way to find out." Shawn immediately started tiptoeing towards the office. Gus grabbed his arm.

"You know the Chief will kill you if she catches you eavesdropping."

"Don't be a beached whale, Gus," Shawn chided. Gus rolled his eyes.

"Listen to her, Shawn! She isn't happy."

"Chief Vick loves me. She's very forgiving." Shawn settled down in Juliet's chair and slid it closer to the door.

"—do _not_ need them!"

"Lassiter, I am bringing in every force we can get our hands on—"Shawn gave Gus a thumbs-up. He glared at him in response, trying to pretend he _wasn't_ curious himself. "And that _includes_ the BAU."

"We _do not _need _feds_ trying to take over our case."

"Feds?!" Shawn muttered. Gus' eyes widened and he finally joined him near the door.

"Vick's bringing in g-men?"

"And women," Shawn said wisely. "Not all g-men are men."

"Yeah. We learned that with that other psychic."

"Oh please, Gus. She was the worst fake I ever saw."

Another glare.

"They're hunting down police officers, Carlton! Any one of us – and I stress, _any_ one of us – could be next! Either way, _Detective_, I already faxed the files to the unit!"

Their voices lowered down to an inaudible level, and Shawn grudgingly returned himself, and the chair, to Juliet's desk. The junior detective in question was now perched on the edge of her desk.

"Did Vick just say she's bringing in feds?"

"Yes. Unless she said heads. At which point I wonder if she's talking about the _Talking _Heads, which would be absolutely _awe_some."

"You know that's right," Gus said.

"We can solve this case," Juliet said, making a gesture suggesting exasperation. "Why do we need feds?"

"I don't know, Juliet," Gus answered. "She _did _mention the BAU."

"What's that supposed to mean. The Booger Anonymous Union?"

"Shawn, it's the Behavior Analysis Unit," Juliet said, her eyes suddenly lighting up oddly. "They're supposed to be some of the smartest people in the Bureau!"

"This changes the fact that Vick's calling in feds?"

"They have a one-hundred percent track record. David _Rossi_ is working for them again."

"That's supposed to mean something to me?" Shawn looked back and forth between Gus and Juliet. "Really Jules? This is me."

"He's one of the most famous FBI profilers," Juliet answered. "He helped found the BAU and then left for lecture tours."

"Oh, so he's like Jack Crawford in _Silence of the Lambs_. Jules, that'd make _you_ Clarice, and . . . oh, Gus, do you want to be Hannibal or—"

A fairly difficult thought popped into Gus' head.

"Shawn, can I talk to you?" he asked in his "Shawn, there's something you aren't thinking about" voice.

"'bout what?" Shawn, in reply, adopted his innocent face.

"Mr. Spencer, Mr. Guster." Gus inwardly cursed as Chief Vick's voice followed the opening of her door. "I was just about to call you."

"I knew it," Shawn said, flowing seamlessly into psychic-mode. "Ow!" He clapped his hand to the back of his head and fell face-first out of Juliet's chair, clapping his hands behind his back. "I'm getting . . ." his voice was muffled from the floor. Gus kicked his leg. Lassiter took a more direct approach to getting Shawn off the floor by grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet. "Ouch, Lassie! But I'm getting black. Black . . . house? No, wait, it's Mr. Rogers!" Shawn swaying slightly, hands still behind his back. "'It's a beautiful day in the neighbor—" He waited for someone to pick it up.

"Hood?" Gus supplied, on cue.

"Hood!" Shawn looked up, unclapping his hands. "They were shot execution style, not by the Tower of London-esque hooded guy though."

"The guy with an axe?" Gus asked.

"No, Gus. The Tower of London guy used an axe, the cops were shot," Shawn explained in his best exasperated tone. "You're thinking of the old executioner guys. This guy . . ." Shawn raised his fingers to his temple again. "No, he's getting busy. I'm getting . . . preparations . . . cleaning? No, not cleaning . . . choasing? Cheesing? Choosing! He's trying to find his next victims. I'm also getting . . . blue? Firing ranges? Lassie getting demoted? What?"

"_Excuse_ me?" Lassiter cut in, indignant.

"No! The cops! His next victims will be out of the SBPD." He motioned around him dramatically.

"Next victims? You're sure about that, Mr. Spencer?"

"Absolutely. Three victims at the same time, all involved in law enforcement? He's going to move up in who he picks now. He's been planning this and he's not done."

"See, Detective Lassiter?" Chief Vick turned towards him slightly. "Calling them in is the right thing. Everyone!" Vick yelled the last bit, attracting attention. "I wanted to let everyone know that I've called in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit to assist us on the cop killing case. They should be here within the next three hours. I've given them permission to set up in that corner. Their liaison, Agent Jareau, assures me that we still retain full jurisdiction of the case."

"We'll see about that," Lassiter muttered under his breath. He was still slightly sore that the last time he'd dealt with federal agents, he'd been founding holding his gun over a dead suspect, subsequently suspended and accused of murder, and _then_ had to save both his own ass _and_ Spencer's at his own house. He didn't hold a grudge against the FBI. Not at all.

Although, there was the small fact that watching Spencer get pistol whipped in the back of the head had only pissed him off more. He'd continually cursed himself for suddenly developing a begrudging acceptance and even _like_ of the annoying pestilence currently lounging at his partner's desk and now put on a case _with_ the feds, a case that he had better still be in charge of.

This day was just getting worse.

"Detective Lassiter, I'm going to ask you to make sure that they are allowed access to whatever they need. All of you are expected to behave with the utmost respect and cooperation. These are some of the most talented agents in the Bureau and we need to treat them as such. One of them, David Rossi, is highly—"

"Wait, _the_ David Rossi?" Lassiter's jaw almost hit the floor. Shawn and Gus glanced at each other. "You didn't mention that _he_ was part of the BAU again."

"He is, and he's currently getting on a plane to come out here," Chief Vick said with a slight smile, realizing that she'd just won Lassiter over. He would, predictably, spend the next few hours making sure that every aspect of his appearance was immaculate in order to impress someone whose entire collection of books, she knew for a fact, Lassiter possessed. "Now everyone, get back to work."

"Shawn, I still need to talk to you," Gus muttered. With a pull on his arm Shawn was encouraged to return Juliet's chair to her and they went a short distance away to hold one of their hushed whispering arguments. Juliet watched them curiously. "Did you think that they might be able to pick out that you're a fake?"

"Gus, I'm good at this."

"You don't know the type of people these guys find. They're called mindhunters for a reason."

"Mindhunters? Really? Why not something like 'professional mind wrestlers' or maybe 'wrasslers.' I like 'wrasslers.'"

"My point is that I don't think we should take this case."

"What's the danger?"

"That we get found out, Shawn. Then you'll be interfering with a _federal_ investigation, not just the SBPD. And then both our asses are going to end up in federal prison."

"We've dealt with feds before."

"From _counterfeiting_. And face it, Agent Ewing wouldn't know a _real_ psychic if it bit him."

"First of all, Gus, psychic bites are very nasty. Secondly, where would the psychic bite him? I can think of numerous places where I wouldn't do so, and I think they cover most of his body. Thirdly, I don't think it's that big of a deal. We'll get through it."

For once, the sheer amount of pure, serious confidence in Shawn's voice reassured Gus that Shawn could actually pull it off.

"But as soon as they look too closely, we're off this case."

"Agreed."

They knuckle-bumped on it.


	3. Chapter 2: And Profilers

Can I own something now? No? Oh well. It was worth a shot.

***

**Chapter 2: . . . and Profilers**

"We have a case in Santa Barbara, California," Jennifer Jareau, known more affectionately as "JJ" by her team, flicked the remote to turn on the television. "A security guard and two police officers were killed after being almost simultaneously abducted two days beforehand. The autopsy report determined that they were tortured repeatedly and then shot execution-style in the back of the head. Their wrists show signs of ligature marks, and the police officers' weapons were missing."

"Someone's abducting police officers?" Emily Prentiss asked, flipping through the crime scene photos. "That's new."

"The department cannot be taking this well," Derek Morgan muttered, flashing back to the _last_ cop-killer they'd had to catch in Arizona.

"As far as I know they aren't," JJ said. "I spoke with their Chief of Police, Karen Vick, and she seemed fairly shaken up."

"Has this been the only reported case?" Dr. Spencer Reid, the youngest member of the team, asked while flipping past the pictures of bloody bodies at autopsy without a grimace. After all, he'd seen and been subjected to worse.

"As far as we know," came the answer from their supervisor, Aaron Hotchner, affectionately known as "Hotch" to his team. He sat directly at the end of the table, opposite the screen. "I doubt this was his first, though."

"The victims are too high-risk," David Rossi, the BAU's own aforementioned celebrity, added. "He would have practiced on lower risk victims, maybe gang members or other security guards."

"Garcia," Hotchner said. The team's technical analyst, the bubbly and irrepressible Penelope Garcia, glanced directly at him. She studiously avoided the screen. "I need you to look for any unsolved cases involving trios of bodies in the Santa Barbara area."

"Right away." Garcia pushed her purple glasses further up onto her nose and started plugging away at her laptop.

"If this looks anything like a regular authority killer, he's only getting started," Morgan stated, despite the fact that he knew everyone else had already figured that out.

"We'll continue this on the plane." Hotchner stood, picking up his file. "Get your bags and meet me at the airfield in an hour. He's already scoping out his next victims, and we have no timetable."

"Sooner the better," Rossi quipped as he left.

#

"So what can we say so far?" Hotchner opened up his file as he slid into one of the seats on the jet. Everyone except Reid was already seated – Reid was busy supplying himself with more coffee from the plane's coffee machine but quickly returned to his seat as the jet started taxiing towards the runway.

"He's killing authority figures," Morgan said. "Probably to get back at some perceived wrong."

"And he has some elaborate set up where he can keep three people captive, most likely in the same room, for at least 2 days at a time," Prentiss added, trailing off at the end as she read through the report, drawn up by a _C. Lassiter_.

"How does the media seem to be, JJ? Or did the Chief not say?" Rossi asked.

"They're keeping it quiet for now but they won't be able to for much longer. They've never had anything like this."

_They had some nasty business a little while ago with a serial killer, _Garcia's voice said, her face appearing on the open laptop. _The Ying-Yang killer . . . supposedly solved by this cute guy named Shawn Spencer who apparently works as a psychic consultant for the SBPD._

Rossi groaned. Not more psychics.

"I thought you were happily in a relationship, Garcia," JJ said with a grin. Garcia gave her the customary grin back.

_Doesn't mean I can't comment_, she said impishly. _Anyway, they've had a couple of issues with some serial killers, robberies, and some nasty single murders but not anything like this. No cop killers that I seem to be able to pull up_.

"Have you found any other crimes similar to this?"

_About two or three of them. I've sent them to you, you should be getting them before you land. I'll keep looking though._

"Keep us posted," Hotchner said.

_Will do._ The screen returned to its FBI-insignia background.

Rossi shifted uncomfortably and returned his attention to the file. He greatly disliked _psychics_, never matter their track record. "So what else?"

"He needs the power he gains from these kills, and is probably sadistic," Reid said, finally adding in his opinion. "Part of the torture is psychological and probably comes from having their fellow officers tortured in front of them."

"It looks mostly like just the 'torture' is from blunt force," Hotchner added, almost more to himself. "There's no use of burning and no obvious suspension, stabbing, asphyxiation . . ."

"There _are_ electrical burn marks, though," Prentiss pointed out.

"Blunt force torture is a very up-close and personal method," Rossi said.

"So's electrocution," Reid muttered, examining the burns again.

"He's got something to beat out of these guys," Morgan said, looking down at the pictures. "This _is_ personal."

#

About two hours later they had figured out a rough profile of their killer and were preparing to disembark. Once off the plane on the small landing strip, they were met by three people: a taller dark-haired man and two shorter blonde women, all three of them wearing badges. JJ picked the one with the badge hung around her neck to address.

"SBPD Chief of Police Karen Vick?" She asked with her sunniest smile.

"Agent Jareau." They shook hands and JJ inwardly thanked her ability to figure out who people were without looking like an absolute idiot. "I have with me Head Detective Carlton Lassiter, and his partner, Junior Detective Juliet O'Hara." JJ shook both their hands in return. She and Juliet grinned broadly at each other.

"This is Supervisory Special Agent In Charge Aaron Hotchner," he shook their hands as JJ introduced him, and no one missed Chief Vick's exasperated look as Lassiter immediately sized him up. "And Supervisory Special Agents Derek Morgan, Dr. Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss, and David Rossi."

Lassiter shook Rossi's hand much more vigorously than the others. It didn't escape Rossi's notice.

"I've read all your books," Lassiter stated proudly, unconsciously continuing to jerk his hand up and down.

"Detective Lassiter," Rossi said calmly. "I would be more than happy to talk to you but I'd appreciate it if you'd return my hand." Sheepishly, Lassiter let go and stepped back. "Thank you."

"I would assume that you'd like to go to your hotel first?" Vick asked carefully.

_Why do they ALWAYS assume that?_ Prentiss randomly thought. _Always. "Do you want to go to your hotel first?" Why would I want to go to my hotel if there's a potentially unstable serial killer on the loose? Especially if he's targeting law enforcement? "Yeah, sure. I'll go to the hotel first. Never matter that I might get my ass abducted and then killed. I want to drop my stuff off 'cause that's more important than the fact that people are getting themselves killed."_ She immediately pushed the thoughts back. It was part of the job after all, and she needed to compartmentalize.

"I'd like to take Morgan, Prentiss, and Rossi to the dump site," Hotchner said. "If possible, JJ and Reid should head back to the station and begin setting up."

There was a nod from Vick. "Lassiter is the detective in charge, so if he wouldn't mind taking you to the scene, I can take Agents Jareau and Reid back to the station."

"Reid, get on the line with Garcia and begin working on a geographical profile of the abductions and dump site." Reid nodded slightly at Hotchner's order. Vick was beginning to wonder if the young-looking agent possessed vocal chords. Her question was solved a half second later.

"Do you want me to go over similar crimes to see if the MO matches?"

"Yes. JJ —"

"I'll help him out." She nodded to confirm her statement.

"O'Hara, ride back with me."

"But Lassiter—"

"There isn't going to be enough room in his car. Besides, I'm certain he can handle a tour of the scene himself."

JJ put an arm around Juliet's shoulders. "We'll let the men play at the scene, Detective, and you can help out Reid and I with the old cases our analyst found."

There was silence for a second, and JJ waited for it. "Wait!" Prentiss said. "That is _low_, JJ. And what about Reid?"

Reid shrugged in response. "I could be stuck with Morgan."

And as such, the ice was broken.

"Well," Morgan announced, draping his arm around Prentiss. She shrugged him arm off her shoulders and glared at him. "How do you like that, Emily? Guess the boy genius didn't get enough coffee. Let's get this party started."

Reid glared at Morgan as he and Prentiss turned to walk towards Lassiter's car. Lassiter hurried after them to make sure they didn't touch anything. With a quick glance that needlessly apologized for his agents, Hotchner followed him. Rossi sighed and paused before heading after them. At some point JJ thought she heard him mention to Hotchner that he was offering him shotgun, or else he was making Prentiss take it and they would have to cram in the backseat. With a grin, JJ and Juliet followed Reid and Vick towards Vick's car.

"What's it like?" Juliet finally asked.

"What's what like?"

"Being an agent."

JJ shrugged. "Interesting enough, I guess. At least in the BAU, life is hectic. I've been just about everywhere, though." JJ took a quick glance at the detective. She may not have been a profiler, but working with the BAU had taught her a few tricks. "Don't worry. They'll respect you after a while."

Juliet jumped. "How –"

"The feeling passes after a while; trust me. I had to go through it. Agent Prentiss had to go through it when she first joined our _unit_, nonetheless the FBI itself." JJ grinned at her. "You have it, but sometimes it just comes with time."

By then, they'd reached the car, and Reid had already settled into the backseat. JJ joined him, letting Juliet take shotgun.


	4. Chapter 3: When Worlds Collide

I have suddenly gained rights to both Psych and Criminal Minds! Mwhahaha! Wait, April Fool's Day isn't . . . oh. Sorry. Still don't own them, then.

***

**Chapter 3: When Worlds Collide; or Just That Rossi **_**Really**_** Hates Psychics**

Lassiter groaned as he pulled up to the scene. "Damn it."

After from a morning jumpstarted by Spencer's irritating call of "Lassie-face," the last thing that Lassiter wanted to see while chauffeuring a basic _god_ of criminology was the little blue Echo parked alongside the scene, or the two people talking to McNabb on the edge of the crime scene tape.

"What?" Morgan asked, almost instinctively tensing to jump out of the car and flying tackle a subject.

"Those two over there." Lassiter pointed out Shawn and Gus. "Talking to my officer. Take my advice: you want to avoid them. At all costs."

"I take it that's your psychic," Prentiss said.

"All the frustration and headache you ever wanted," Lassiter grumbled.

Rossi made a mental note of the psychic's appearance before stepping out of the car, and already had his phone out to call Garcia and get _any_ scoop on him.

"Rossi," Prentiss said, climbing out of the car. She was displeased at the fact that she had spent fifteen minutes sandwiched between Rossi, who had read the case file the entire way, and Morgan, whose incessant jokes had made the drive _just_ bearable. "Give him a chance before you start getting Garcia to hunt down every mistake he's ever made."

Rossi paused. "Prentiss . . ."

"You have no idea how he functions, or even whether or not he does defraud people."

"He defrauds people just by telling them he's a psychic," Rossi argued.

"I'm not going to disagree with you," Prentiss said. "But you heard Garcia as well as I did. He's had a one-hundred percent solve rate for the SBPD. Just . . . give him a chance. And either way, you'd need to figure out how he works. But that's just what I think." With that, Prentiss headed off after the others. Rossi waited for a second, staring down at the phone in his hand. He had to see for himself, then. Or something.

God, he _hated_ psychics.

He hit the speed dial number and smiled slightly at Garcia's peppy voice.

_The Information Superhighway is open. Speak and be directed._

"I want everything you can find involving this Shawn Spencer and his cases."

_Absolutely sir. But don't be too harsh on him._

"Garcia!"

_Terribly sorry sir. I'll send them to your palm right now._ With that, she was gone and Rossi was left pinching the bridge of his nose, something he did when frustrated.

Meanwhile, Shawn had caught sight of the attractive brunette following the rest of the FBI agents (and Lassiter) and, before Gus could catch him, had intercepted her. It didn't stop Gus from hurrying after him.

"Hello. Shawn Spencer, resident psychic for the SBPD." As usual he accented the different letters in the acronym. "And this is my compatriot—" Gus motioned and glared at him, telling him to just use his real name _for once_. Shawn seemed to get the message and relented. "Burton Guster. Better known as Gus."

"Resident psychic, hm?" Prentiss said, inwardly fairly proud of her deduction. Lassiter suddenly appeared with the rest of the team.

"Lassie!" Shawn exclaimed. "Where's Jules?"

"We didn't have room in the car, Spencer," Lassiter answered, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the group. Gus shrugged at their looks and grinned in his PR sort of way.

"Burton Guster," he said, shaking their hands. "Co-owner of Psych, Santa Barbara's finest, and only, psychic detective agency."

"Mr. Guster, these are Agents Hotchner, Morgan, and Rossi." Prentiss said, gesturing. "And I don't think I actually had time to introduce myself, but I'm Agent Prentiss."

"Welcome to Santa Barbara," Gus said, still grinning. _They don't seem _too_ horrible . . ._

"Does this usually happen?" Morgan asked, nodding in the general direction of Lassiter and Shawn, who were standing by Lassiter's car holding a fairly energetic conversation.

"Fairly often. Don't let me get in your way. After all, I can't do much while Detective Lassiter is distracting Shawn."

"Aaron," Rossi suddenly said, hinting that he'd hardly been paying attention, and Hotchner turned to him. "Look at the . . ." With that, Rossi started walking towards the center of the scene, followed by the other agent.

"It was nice meeting you, Mr. Guster," Prentiss said, as she and Morgan followed after them. Gus glanced over at Shawn and Lassiter.

"Really Lassie?" Gus heard Shawn argue as he walked up. "You don't think I'm going to be _that_ bad."

"No theatrics, no weird vibrations, _nothing_. You get something, you just spit it out."

"You know very well that I am a _slave_ to my visions. They just come out of nowhere, and I can't control them."

"Well, tell the _spirits_ that you have more important things to do." Lassiter glanced back over, realized the agents were gone, and immediately hurried towards them.

"We've got Agents Hotchner, Rossi, Prentiss, and Morgan over here," Gus explained, pointing each one out.

"Dude!" Shawn said. "That guy totally looks like Greg!"

"Who?"

"Greg! From _Dharma and Greg_."

"I'm more distracted that Agent Morgan looks exactly like Malcolm from the Young and the Restless."

Gus got Shawn's creeped-out look.

"You actually watched soaps? I thought you were just into that stupid Spanish one."

"Even the Chief watched that one! And yes, Shawn, I watched the Young and the Restless for a few years. Now, should you maybe be doing your thing instead of figuring out who the agents look like?"

In answer Shawn dodged under the crime scene tape, followed by Gus.

Meanwhile, Lassiter stood fairly quietly to the side while watching the team pace the scene. Rossi and Hotchner were still standing in approximately the same place, muttering to each other and occasionally pointing out some aspect of the scene. Morgan was pacing the outskirts, accompanied by Prentiss, examining how the dump occurred. Lassiter leaned slightly closer to where Hotchner and Rossi were conversing.

"—scene is obscured, which would allow for privacy when dumping the bodies."

"What were the gaps in time of death?"

"They were killed nearly simultaneously."

"So he managed to get three law enforcement officials into the same car, drive them for God knows how far, get them out of the car, and shoot them without too much of a hassle."

"It appears so."

"That makes it highly unlikely that this is only one person."

"You're thinking a team?"

"At the very least." Rossi glanced around the scene. "There's no tire tracks indicating that they pulled off road, so they had to have been walked out here. I'm not sure what you would do but if _we_ were being marched to an execution site . . ."

"One of us would run, at least," Hotchner said.

"Probably at the encouragement of the others. At which point there would only be the two victims. Unless . . ."

"Unless there were more UnSubs here to keep the victims in line."

"Hotch!" Morgan and Prentiss joined the other two. "There is no way one person could pull this off."

"We just figured that out," Rossi said. "Did you get anything about how many?"

"Noth—"

Shawn flicked his eyes closed for half a second, skimming back over the crime scene photos. Finally, his mind latched on two in particular: one, focusing on the bodies, where the toes of three distinct footprints could be seen behind the bodies, behind the ones belonging to the victims themselves, and then another of the scene, where a fourth, similar footprint was barely visible about four feet away from the bodies. The prints were deeper than those of the CSIs, hinting that they had been standing there longer. Not to mention, the tread impression was different from the shoes worn by forensics . . .

"Iaaaaa'm getting something," Shawn announced, immediately assuming his regular psychic stance. Lassiter rolled his eyes as the four agents looked back over at him.

"Spit it out, Spencer," Lassiter snapped.

"Chill out, Lassiter," Gus said. "You know he can't control his visions."

Meanwhile, Shawn had positioned himself on the dry earth where he'd seen the separate prints in the picture.

"There was one here," Shawn said. "No. Not here. Yes, here. But he had eyes in the back of his head. No! He was an owl."

"So he was facing the other way," Prentiss supplied. Rossi glared at her.

"Yes!" Shawn said. "He was looking for something. A person. No, people. Anyone. He was on lookout. And then . . ." He turned back to where the bodies were. "Three shalt be the number thou shalt count," he intoned in his best clerical voice. "And the number of the counting shall be three."

"So you're saying there were three others," Morgan filled in, unable to help a slight grin at the Monty Python reference. With that, Shawn collapsed backwards dramatically and was caught by Gus.

"Usually that's a _yes_," Gus explained, shoving Shawn off him.

"At least four," Shawn said. "Maybe more."

"There would have needed to be a minimum of three," Prentiss said. "Three would allow for one to lead and two to continue subduing the victims."

"But four would be more ideal to allow for one leader and three others, one for each prisoner."

"Which may explain why only three people are taken at a time," Rossi pointed out suddenly. "It may be a matter of numbers, not a special significance of the number three."

"Morgan, call Garcia and have her look for anything online suggesting a Santa Barbara based group suggestive of violence against the police," Hotchner commanded, hardly looking at the other agent, who immediately flipped out his phone.

"I can get you any files," Lassiter immediately volunteered.

"That would also be useful," Hotchner said. "However, it's highly unlikely that you've dealt with this group before."

"Why wouldn't we have dealt with them before?"

"They would have flown under the radar until now, getting this planned," Rossi explained. Lassiter immediately looked enthralled. Shawn and Gus glanced at each other and rolled their eyes. "This would have taken an incredible amount of planning, both to build wherever they keep their victims and determine a strategy. Pulling off the simultaneous abductions of three armed people, two of whom are cops, and escaping notice until they dump the bodies, takes an incredible amount of planning nearly on par with domestic terrorist cells. Our analyst will be told to look for any organizations that have long been fairly nonviolent and are only smaller groups."

"Either way, I'm pretty sure we've done all we can do here," Hotchner said. "We should head on back to the station and see if anyone else has come up with anything."

"Absolutely!" Lassiter said, starting back to his car. Gus interrupted the exodus back to the Crown Vic.

"We're going the same place, if any of you want to ride with us."

There was a pause and Prentiss almost immediately took them up on it. If she had to ride crammed in between Morgan and Rossi _one more time_ . . . Rossi thought about it for a second, if only to avoid Lassiter, but then decided he'd rather be stuck with the detective than a crackpot psychic.


	5. Chapter 4: Wrong Place, Literally

A/N: I hope everyone's enjoying this so far. This may be the last update for a little while. I have up to something like Chapter 17 or 18 written (yeah, I can't write anything little, apparently) but reeeaaally dislike some of it, so it needs mucho editing. 3's. Give me love, perhaps.

Guess what?? I still own nothing! Except a beta fish named Burton Guster and a hermit crab named Derek Morgan. And some pens. :)

_____________________________________

**Chapter 4: Why did the BAU conference area **_**need**_** to be by Lassiter's desk?**

Lassiter reached the police department first and as such Morgan, Hotchner, and Rossi were the first inside. Much to Rossi's chagrin, JJ and Reid had been directed to set up in a broad, fairly open area near Lassiter's desk. Almost immediately, Reid intercepted them.

"Garcia is still running for more cases in surrounding areas and for any organizations that may be against the SBPD," he explained as they headed towards the boards and two blondes working at a desk. "But we finished the geographical profile."

"Anything?"

Reid shook his head. "Not really. The abductions were all in the same area but we would need more data."

"Like what?" Juliet asked, her head popping up. The agents exchanged a glance.

"More victims," Reid finally supplied. Rossi took up residence by the board, skimming the photos.

"Where's Emily?" JJ asked.

"She rode with the psychic," Morgan answered, skimming the geographical profile. "I don't blame her. She was crammed in the middle of a Crown Vic between myself and Rossi." He put the paper back down on the table.

"I think I'd ride with them too," Reid said. Morgan cross his arms.

"Really Reid? We aren't that bad."

"What about the old cases?" Hotchner asked.

"Well," Reid said, moving to the whiteboard. "The earliest case didn't fit the MO. All the victims died at different times, by months, and all were women with stabbing deaths. The other two," Reid pointed them out. "Were more promising. The first one was a group of gang leaders, and the second a group of unarmed security guards from a warehouse. All were found in a field, and all were shot execution-style. We have no idea how long the gang leaders were kept, but the guards were reported missing two days before their bodies were found. Time of death put their murders within six hours of being found."

"I remember that case," Lassiter said. "It's still considered open. We're pretty sure the other was just a gang initiation."

"It doesn't fit the right profile," Reid explained. "Usually a gang initiation doesn't take such a severe route."

"Usually it involves the newcomer fighting his way in," Rossi added. "Not necessarily killing members of other gangs. That usually happens at the hands of the already initiated, during large-scale gang warfare. It isn't actually as regular as everyone assumes."

"How long after the first bodies were found were the security guards abducted?" Hotchner cut in.

Reid paused. "Only about a day."

Vick had emerged from her office to join them by now. "So we only have the rest of the day to head off this guy?"

"It appears so," Rossi replied. "And, we're most likely dealing with a group."

"A _grou_—"

"Jules!" someone exclaimed from the entrance.

Prentiss, Shawn, and Gus had finally shown up. The reason for the long trip involved Shawn attempting to convince the other two to stop for a pineapple smoothie. Unfortunately (for Shawn), both Prentiss and Gus had been adamantly against the idea, and he'd caved in for the promise of getting one on the way back to the Psych office.

"It's about time you got here," Lassiter snapped. Shawn scanned the board and his face broadened into a wide grin.

"I _told_ you that gang case was bigger than you thought!" He exclaimed proudly. Lassiter glared at him.

"You said we may be dealing with a group?" Vick turned back to Rossi.

"Most likely. It would take more than one person to both subdue and kill these guys."

"How many?" Juliet asked, glancing at the board.

"Mr. Spencer seems to think we're dealing with at least 4," Hotchner supplied. "And for the most part, I'm willing to agree with him."

"What I saw, Chief," Shawn said as he decided to elaborate. "Was one man, standing with his back to the scene, on lookout, and three more, one for each victim, standing behind them. They're the ones who shot the trio."

"And your idea of the scene support this?" Vick looked back and forth between her psychic and the Agent in Charge.

"Absolutely." Morgan answered in lieu of Hotchner, adopting a stance with his hands on his hips. "When I was walking the scene with Prentiss, there's little room for damage control if there was only one or two people. If any of the victims had tried to bolt, no one would have been able to stop them. Even if there were two UnSubs."

"What's an UnSub?" Shawn muttered in Gus' general direction.

"Unknown Subject."

"How do you know this stuff?" Gus elbowed him in reply. "Ow!"

"Would there be another way for someone to do this?" Juliet asked.

Prentiss glanced over at her and crossed her arms across her chest. "It's highly unlikely that Stockholm Syndrome would have set in that quickly, and unless the officers were all incredibly close, it's doubtful a threat of violence would have set in over two days."

"But it would be possible?" Gus cut in. Shawn elbowed him.

"Now you just sound smart again."

"I am smart, Shawn. Shut up." Gus refocused his attention to the agents.

"Possible, but highly unlikely," the tall awkward agent that Shawn and Gus had not been introduced to yet said. Shawn picked out that his security pass read _SSA Dr. Spencer Reid_. "Even in the original case in Stockholm, the captives were held for six days. Over two days and intensive torture, there usually isn't enough time to develop a rapport with their captors."

"On top of that, having been a cop, I could see a serious problem with cops developing affection for their captors," Morgan said.

"I'm still a cop and I couldn't see it," Lassiter cut in.

"So what do we have then?" Vick asked, adopting Morgan's stance. "A group of people with a serious grudge against the department?"

A phone rang shrilly in the silence. Morgan checked his instinctively, even though he knew that his ringtone was not _Shout_. Meanwhile, Shawn had pulled his phone out of his pocket while rolling his eyes, and flipped it open.

"Hello, Dad."

_Shawn!_ Henry Spencer bellowed into the phone by way of his typical greeting, loudly enough that everyone in the small corner of the department could hear him. _Where the hell are you?!_

"Well, right now, I'm currently being suspended upside down by a motorcycle gang after I accused their alien leader of being a robot. But out of the kindness of their hearts they let me answer my phone." Shawn took a few steps back from the group, actually surprising some of them with his politeness but not with his remark.

_Dammit Shawn! _

"Dad, I'm working a case."

_You said you were going to get over here and clean out your crap from my attic! I expected you over here five hours ago!_

"Really? It's only three. That would have put me there at . . . ten, and you know that hair like this doesn't get up before then."

_Get over here and clean out my attic, Shawn!_

"Sorry, Dad. I'm working with feds on this one."

There was an audible groan on the other end.

_And this isn't going to end up like that crazy psychic from the counterfeiting case who thought it'd be a good idea to stick a gun at your head, now is it?_

"No. For one, there's more than two of them. They're also not from counterfeiting, and they have _two_ hot—"

_Where are they from? Is this the cop case?_

"It is, and Vick called in some group called the Behavioral Analysis Unit." There was a long pause, and Shawn wondered if Henry had a heart attack. "Are you ignoring me?"

_Get off this case, Shawn._

"What?"

_These people analyze behavior for a _living_, Shawn. They'll figure out your little charade and then what'll you do?_

"They're not going to figure out my 'little charade,' Dad."

_Bet me. Get off this case, Shawn. I am not covering your ass for the federal government._

"You won't have to."

_Do NOT hang up on m—_

Shawn clipped the phone closed and walked back to the boards. "What'd I miss?"

"Shouldn't you be able to tell us, _psychic_?" Lassiter snapped. Shawn jerked backwards in a manner suggesting that the detective's words had literally hit him.

"Lassie, I'm hurt. The spirits are telling me that they aren't going to cave to your silly whims when Gus here can just fill me in as easily."

Rossi slightly raised his eyebrows at Hotchner, who shook his head slightly and gave him a look that basically read 'we're here to solve a case, not analyze the department's methods.' Rossi shrugged in a manner suggesting agreement.

"Basically, we've determined we're probably dealing with four to five individuals," Gus said.

"But I thought we'd moved past that already."

"It's officially on the list now. That's the difference." Morgan nodded towards the whiteboard, where a single line of _4-5_ had been written. Approximately then, his phone rang. "It's Garcia. I'll put her on speaker."

"Please do," Hotchner said, skimming the board again.

"You're on speaker, baby girl. Tone it down," Morgan said, setting the phone down.

_Aw, and after all the questions I was going to ask about you on a beach_, the voice over the phone answered. Shawn and Gus glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. _I could so see you as a sp—_

"_Garcia_."

_All right, all right. _There was a slight chuckle from the other end. _I've found about four groups that have so far been involved in nonviolent protests of the police department out in sunny Santa Barbara. I discounted the Facebook group dedicated entirely to a dislike of a retired detective named—_

"Henry Spencer?" Shawn asked.

_Actually, yes._

"Big surprise," he mumbled.

_There is also one for current head detective Carlton Lassiter, apparently titled "Detective Lassiter Sucks" . . ._

"Spencer!" Lassiter yelled. Shawn flinched.

"Geez, Lassie. I don't even _have_ a Facebook!"

_Anyway, _Garcia continued. _Out of them only one has had significantly increased chatter. I ran it through all known codes and nothing fits. I think they're just planning an outdoor barbeque. I'll send you the info anyway. _

"Send us information on the rest of the groups too, Garcia," Prentiss said.

_Already on it. And Prentiss, have you met that ps_—

"I'll give you a call later, Garcia," she answered.

_Ok. Don't get sunburned out there too much. _

"Bye Garcia," Morgan said teasingly into the phone.

_I'll call you if I get any more!_ And the cheerful voice cut off.

"I like her," Gus said. Shawn nodded.

"Did we get the names of the groups yet? We can run them past any cases we have," Juliet said.

Hotchner had already been skimming his handheld. "We've got _End Police Brutality_, the _Concerned Center for SBPD Fairness_, _The SBPD are Armed Bullies_, and the group that apparently had the chatter was the group _End Lack of Protection for Citizens of Santa Barbara_."

"We could be looking at this wrong," Reid said. They all turned to him. "If this is just a group who hates the police department they may not have formed an actual organization."

"Do you think we shouldn't check it out?" Morgan asked.

"No, we still should. But maybe we should broaden it out too."

"Detective Lassiter." Lassiter jumped as Rossi addressed him. "Do you remember any cases where there was a group or individual who believed they were falsely accused and threatened any detective in the department?"

"I think you just described a majority of our cases," Vick said with a half-chuckle. Lassiter cleared his throat.

"None that stick out. There's a good deal of cases where people swear up and down that they've been falsely accused. Especially here."

"Especially if Lassie's the lead on the case," Shawn inserted, earning a glare.

"Any cases where a significant threat was posed are worth going over," Prentiss explained. "No matter how old."

"Mr. Spencer," Vick turned to him. "Would you be able to get in contact with your father to see if there are any old cases that stick out in his mind that may have involved a significant threat?"

Shawn groaned. "Only for you, Chief, would I walk into a conversation like that willingly. And he'd better not make me clean out the attic _now._ But if he does, I won't hold you personally responsible."

"I'll drive," Gus said, starting off.

"Only if we get smoothies!" Shawn yelled, starting after him.

"Reid, would you mind going and talking to Mr. Spencer with them?" Hotchner wanted one of his agents there, and either Reid or Prentiss seemed like the better ones to send. Plus, he wanted to keep an eye on that pair and was fairly certain Reid _wasn't_ going to attract a serial killer in five seconds. That, and Prentiss had already put up with them for today.

"Sure." Reid followed the arguing duo towards the door.

"Meanwhile, Detective Lassiter," Rossi started. "If you could find any of those old cases that we can go through, we can get closer to a profile. The sooner the better."


	6. Chapter 5: The Spencers

A/n: Wow it's been a while and I have SO MANY REVIEWS!!! *cries a little* I'm always nervous about fanfics so it's like OMG THERE'S GOOD REVIEWS.  You guys make my day, so I got my worn out butt in gear. I'm doing an archaeological dig right now so if you've never done one, it will LAY YOU OUT. No Zippy the dinosaurs, though, sadly. But I may have an idea for a straight Psych fic out of it . . . And for the record, I'm not too fond of this or the next chapters so they may get rewritten, but they are necessary for the continuation of the story. 

The-vampire-act, Feral: You shall see more of Reid, especially later. Not going to promise any Reid-whump, however.

Animefreakkagome , lerabird, xxwingsxx, tishathewriter: Hope I live up to your expectations. 

I'msassy2127: OMG it HAS been over a month. *embarrassed face*

Disclaimer: Own nothing. Yet. Mwhahahaha.

(P.S. I am an Anth/Soc major, not Chemistry. If anything Gus and Reid talk about isn't chemically correct, I blame my Chem majored friend. She knows who she is.)

Without further ado:

**Chapter 5: Henry Spencer, Interrogator Extraordinaire **

"Guys!" Shawn and Gus turned to see one of the agents trotting, for lack of a better word, after them, a beat up tan leather messenger bag bouncing off one side. Shawn recognized him as _SSA Dr. Spencer Reid_. He slowed down as he reached them. "Hotch, uh, asked me to go with you to your father's, if that's ok."

"Sure!" Shawn said immediately, perking up. "But, I don't believe we've been introduced. I'm Shawn Spencer, and this is my compatriot, Burton 'Toto le Zeppo' Guster, better known as Gus." Gus glared at him.

"Dr. Spencer Reid." Reid shifted his bag slightly to shake their hands.

"Dude!" Shawn turned to Gus. "He has the same name as me!"

"It would appear so," Reid said with a slight smile, bouncing awkwardly on his toes. He was starting to see why the freelance psychic annoyed the hell out of a straight-laced detective like Lassiter.

"Yes he does, _Shawn_," Gus said pointedly. "Now stop stalling. We need to see your dad."

"Gus, don't be a peg-flippered seal," Shawn whined, putting his hands in the air sullenly. "Fine. But I am _not _cleaning out his attic."

"You owe me."

"Shotgun!" Shawn proceeded to yell, running towards the blue Echo. Gus rolled his eyes.

"Is he _always_ like this?" Reid asked. "He's like a . . ." he struggled for a description, and finally just gave up with a simple head shake.

Gus glanced over at him. "You get used to it."

They had settled into the car and gone two blocks towards Henry Spencer's house when Shawn frantically made Gus stop at the smoothie place, bouncing out of the car and inside. Gus shook his head and turned off the car.

"What's going on with him and his father?" Reid finally asked, already making assumptions about said relationship but wanting confirmation.

"They have an . . ." Gus looked for a word. "_Interesting_ relationship."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Reid said with a bit of a nervous laugh.

"Don't worry. They'll hopefully tone it down."

"That bad?"

"Yep." Gus glanced back at him. "I hope you don't mind me asking, Agen-Dr. Reid, but exactly _how_ old are you?"

Reid sighed in answer. He'd been asked that already by both the Chief and by that pesky head detective. "For one, you can just call me Reid. And I'm twenty-seven."

"And you're a doctor."

"Not medically. Academically."

"For what?"

Reid sighed. Of course he was getting asked this again. "Chemistry, engineering, and math."

Gus couldn't help what he said next. "Three Ph.D's? _Damn_."

"Yeah." Reid shrugged. "That's the reaction I'm used to." Gus immediately didn't feel quite as bad.

"Chemistry?" Gus asked finally. "You know, I'm in pharmaceuticals." Reid immediately perked up. "Just sales, but you still have—"

"To understand something."

"Exactly."

Shawn returned about this point balancing three pineapple smoothies (he had no idea if Agent Reid even liked pineapple _or_ smoothies, but considering the fact that everyone liked pineapple and smoothies, at least the gesture should go over well) and opened the door.

"Well, and the higher the electronegativity of the atoms in a compound, the –"

He stopped slurping on his straw to look back and forth between the duo. "Electro-nega-_what_? Did I miss something?"

"Yeah, Shawn. All your chemistry classes." Gus accepted the proffered smoothie. "You ready?"

Shawn made a gesture that indicated a response of "if I must" and handed the other smoothie back to Reid. Reid looked surprised.

"Um, thanks."

"Thought you might want one. It's pineapple. If you don't want it, I'll take it back."

In response Reid held it slightly closer.

Gus pulled out of the parking lot towards Henry's house, as the conversation progressed in various chemical-medical jargon. Gus continued to glance at Shawn to see him look progressively uncomfortable. It was a slightly satisfying experience. He only had these a couple times before, usually whenever Shawn was accompanying him to meet a former spouse or, more often, in the middle of a Guster family argument. They made it there, and Shawn finally broke his uncharacteristic silence.

"I still don't see why we couldn't have just called."

"What would you have said, Shawn? 'Hi dad, it's me. No, I can't come and clean out your attic but I need you to think about any cases where there was a legitimate threat to the police department. Hehehehehehe?'"

"For one, I hope I don't sound like that. Reid, do I sound like that?"

Reid shrugged, deciding wisely not to get involved.

"Just get in there." Gus jumped out, followed by Reid and a very displeased Shawn. Gus elbowed him forwards. With some eye rolling, whining, and foot dragging, he finally knocked on the screen.

"_Shawn!_" came the resulting answer as Henry flung open the door. Reid jumped as the door slammed open. "I thought you said you had a _case_!"

"You see, Chief Vick decided to send us on a wild goose chase," Shawn explained. "She wants you to—"

"_No_, no no," Henry shook his head, starting to close the door. "I am _not_ harboring any more fugitives, police informants, or—"

"Mr. Spencer," Reid started, deciding it was time for intervention or they'd _never_ get into that house. "I'm from the FBI." Henry stopped in his tirade as Reid held up his badge. "Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid, from the Behavior Analysis Unit. We need your help on the, uh, triple murder case."

"Oh." Henry stood in the doorway for a second. "Come in, then."

He led them into the living room and they sat down.

"Don't think you're getting out of the attic, Shawn." Henry redirected his attention to Reid. "_You're_ FBI?"

"Yes." Reid nodded.

"You can't be more than twenty-five."

Reid paused. "At least you didn't put me at fourteen. I'm twenty seven." _Maybe I should just walk around with a sign around my neck._ _"Spencer Reid. 27 years old. Yes, I do happen to be a legitimate FBI agent."_

"And you're a Supervisory Special Agent."

Gus leaned back in his chair as Reid glanced over at him. He shrugged, hoping Reid took that as a _Henry always does this, it isn't you_.

"Is that so weird?" Shawn took the opportunity to jump in. He liked this Reid guy and knew how irritating being cut into by Henry was.

"_Yes_, Shawn," Henry snapped. "Usually it takes—"

"Anywhere from ten to fifteen years after first being recruited to the FBI. I was recruited immediately to the BAU out of graduate school at twenty-three, ok?" Reid explained hurriedly. "But there's a sadistic Unknown Subject running around Santa Barbara abducting and torturing police officers, so can we focus on why we're here before he finds three new targets?"

"Basically, Mr. Spencer," Gus cut in. "We need you to go through your head and find any cases where a distinct threat to the police was made."

Henry chuckled. "Try _every_ case, Gus."

"Mr. Spencer, what about any cases where the perpetrator was released within the last few weeks, preferably with family angry at the SBPD?"

Henry sighed heavily and got to his feet. "One second."

They heard him climb some stairs and then loud crashes. Reid glanced over at the other two.

"He's _very_ detailed," Gus explained as Shawn leaned back on his half of the sofa, projecting his intense dislike at being there.

"And he hates it when he thinks something doesn't make sense."

"Does he always interrogate people in his house?"

"Yes," Gus and Shawn answered in unison. Reid nodded slightly as he pieced together the last missing pieces of Shawn and Henry's relationship. Heavy footsteps on stairs announced Henry's return. He stormed back into the living room with a thick folder.

"I nearly got killed by one of your boxes, Shawn!"

"What? Did it try to knife you? I told it to use the gun." Shawn rolled his eyes as Henry glared at him.

"Here." He tossed the file into Shawn's lap. "This is the file of every case where I thought the threat of retribution was highest. There's nine. They're all either gang-related or had a powerful family who blamed the SBPD for breaking the family up."

Reid grabbed the files before Shawn had a chance to open them. Opening each file in turn he quickly read the summaries, dividing them into two piles. After about five minutes, each of the nine files had been organized, and he sat back. "Ok. I divided these into two separate piles. This one has the cases that are probably not connected. The second one is those that may be."

"Only _two_?" Gus asked, picking up the one on top. "And you figured it out in a few _minutes_?"

"Don't ask," Reid mumbled, almost incoherently. Henry sat back down.

"No." Reid looked up. "How in _hell_ did you read it that fast?"

Reid sighed.

"This case isn't about me," he answered.

"How fast can you read?" Henry continued, softening his tone slightly.

"Dad," Shawn cut in.

"No, Shawn."

"Mr. Spencer, this isn't necessary," Gus said, backing off immediately at the glare he received.

"Twenty thousand a minute," Reid answered unwillingly.

"Would you like his license and registration?" Shawn said airily. "Perhaps you should dig out the old cuffs and arrest him for obstruction of justice." Henry glared at him.

"We need to get these back to Chief Vick." Reid hurried to gather up the last two folders, sensing that it might be a good time to abandon the Spencer residence.

"As soon as you're done this case . . ." Henry pointed threateningly at Shawn as they stood. "You're cleaning my attic."

"Is that like cleaning your clock?" Shawn asked innocently.

"Look at the time," Gus said, pointing to his watch. "Reid, we better go. Come on, Shawn."

"Sh—_Shawn_!"

But they were already out the door and nearly back in Gus' car.

"How often do you end up running out of his house?" Reid asked, snapping his seatbelt.

"About every time," Gus answered, turning the key to start the Echo.

"Sounds about right," Shawn added with a nod. "I think he's following us, Gus. No 11-point turns, 'kay?"


	7. Chapter 6: Lessons Learned

A/n: Wow! Two in one day! Will probably not post any more until Tuesday (I have them written, just not edited) but I'll be hanging with my folks over the next two or so days since they drove three or so hours to see me. I'll be editing in the meanwhile, however. So expect at least one more chapter before a short period of silence again. Hearts – me.

Disclaimer: Own things only in my dreams and on Mars.

**Chapter 6: Lessons Learned in Self-Locking Rooms**

Juliet and Morgan had volunteered to go through the records room and pull files on all known members of the names Garcia had given them, leaving the others to continue working out a profile. They walked past the desk and down a short flight of stairs towards the Interrogation Rooms, and Juliet stopped at a windowed door.

"The records are kept in here," she said, opening the door and letting Morgan in. She closed it behind her. "We'll divide the work. One of us can look up the names on the computer, and the other can pull the paper files."

"I'll pull the paper records," Morgan volunteered. "You're probably more familiar with the computer system. Alphabetical, right?"

"What's that supposed to mean, Agent Morgan?"

"Whoa." Morgan flashed her his winning, flirtatious smile and held up his hands in defeat. "I only meant that you work here, and the systems aren't all standard."

"Oh." Juliet felt herself flush slightly for over-reacting. "Sorry."

"Hey. No harm, no foul, right?"

They worked in silence for a few minutes.

"How long have you been here?" Morgan finally asked.

"About four years. I transferred in from Miami."

"Miami to California, eh?"

"What can I say? I like being warm."

"Are the quakes a trade for the gators?"

"They're about even." Juliet stared at the screen. "It looks like most of our suspects have no records."

"Not surprising. I'm hardly finding anything." He pushed one of the drawers closed with a _thump_. "I'm starting to think Reid may be right. Maybe this is the wrong angle."

"What would the right angle be?"

"That it's for revenge."

"For what?"

Morgan scratched the back of his head. "Someone obviously pissed this guy off . . . we haven't gotten that far yet, remember?" He grinned at her again.

Juliet sighed. "I know. I just wish we had."

"Don't worry yourself. It'll work out." Morgan picked up a file. "This is interesting."

"Hmm?"

"I didn't realize your department kept a list of all the people who mailed threatening letters."

"I didn't either." Juliet looked up at the file he was holding. "It was probably a Spencer invention."

"Are there a lot of those?"

Juliet grinned. "You have no idea."

Morgan tossed the file down on the table. "Well, we have this then. I think it's our best bet."

"Let's see what names we have in here," Juliet said, opening it. "First, we've got _Gilberto Audie_."

"Here's his file . . ." Morgan dug for it.

"What about _Taylor Basyne_?"

"Hold up. Okay. Right here," Morgan answered, putting it on top of Audie's.

They gained a list of nearly eighty names and an even larger stack of files by the time they'd finished going through the folder. Juliet leaned back in her chair. "Wow. I didn't think that many people hated the department."

"I'm just thankful _we_ don't keep one of these." Morgan couldn't help a small chuckle at the thought of one of them having to tuck _another_ threatening letter into an overflowing folder. "I know I get about ten at the end of any given case."

"Really?" Juliet looked up at him incredulously. "There's . . ."

"You'd be surprised just how many people become fans of serial killers and hate us for putting them away," Morgan said with a shrug. There was another look. "It's sick but does happen."

"We should get these back up to the others," Juliet said, standing and hefting half of the pile. "You coming?"

Morgan picked up the other half and tried the door. "Detective O'Hara . . ."

"Oh God," Juliet dropped the files back down. "I forgot, the records room locks from the outside."

"And it's still locked."

Juliet flipped open her phone. "I am never going to live this down."

"Lassiter?"

"No. Just . . . don't tell Shawn," Juliet muttered. "Chief? Yeah, I . . . well, you know how the records room . . . yes . . . thanks Chief." She closed the phone. "She's sending McNabb down to let us out."

Morgan sat back down. "All right then. So, Detective O'Hara. You said you've been here for four years?"

"About." She joined him at the table.

"What made you come to Santa Barbara?"

She shrugged. "A change of scenery, I guess. I didn't realize I'd be one of the only female detectives in the department. What made you join the Bureau?"

"I was a beat cop in Chicago for a few years," Morgan said with a complimentary shrug. "Decided I wanted to do something more."

"Have you seen many cases like this?" Juliet tapped the files.

"Depends," Morgan answered, leaning forward on the table. "Cop-killers? Yeah. We just had one in Arizona a few months ago, actually. We only caught him by painting a target on Hotch's back. But _kidnapping_ police officers?" Morgan shook his head. "That's a new one for us."

"Has it ever happened before?"

He frowned. "We've had the occasional agent abducted but I know I've never seen anything like this. You may want to ask Rossi."

"Why Rossi?"

"With how much he's seen, he'd know if there had ever been something like this." There was a click at the door. Morgan stood and patted Juliet's shoulder while picking up his stack of files. "It'll work out. We'll find these guys."

Juliet had jumped when he'd touched her, more because it didn't seem like a gesture he'd do, and followed him out with her own files. "Thanks, McNabb. If you let Shawn hear _a word_ of this . . ."

"Jules!"

Juliet groaned, and didn't miss the agent in front of her unsuccessfully try to hide a grin. "Hey Shawn."

As Reid and Gus headed towards the boards, Shawn bounced over and took the files out of Juliet's hands. "Let me get these for you."

"Thanks," Juliet said slowly. "How did it go at your dad's?"

"Same as usual." He joined them in their walk towards the others. "But . . . he doesn't have self-locking doors, at least."

"_Shawn!_"

Morgan quickly coughed to hide a laugh. He, at least, already knew that he was _never_ going to hear the end of it. Juliet hurried past them with an attempted glare at Shawn to make it to the boards first.

"Was it something I said?" Shawn asked innocently. Morgan couldn't help but laugh.

"You know, Mr. Spencer," Morgan said. "I have a rule I like to follow. Usually, it's 'don't _date_ a woman who carries a gun,' but in this case, I think we can change that to 'don't piss _off_ a woman who carries a gun.'"

They joined the others. Reid half turned to Morgan.

"Did you really get locked in?"

Morgan set the stack of files down on the table. "Maybe. I had much better company this time." He winked at Juliet, who crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Elevators, Reid. _Elevators_."

"Elevators?" Rossi asked. Prentiss was too busy covering up a laugh.

"It wasn't my fault that that elevator got stuck and _you_ pani—"

Hotchner fought to hide a slight smile as he turned from the board, a raised eyebrow giving Morgan and Reid the cue to drop it. "What do we have now?"

"We found around eighty names of people who sent threatening letters to the department." Juliet held up the file. "Chief, did you know we had this?"

Vick shrugged. "I've known about that one for a while."

"Why do we have this?"

"In case anything like this ever happened."

"Mr. Spencer kept a similar file," Reid said, holding up the two folders. "I pulled these two. They fit the general idea we had for the revenge aspect."

"I think," Rossi said. "We can safely abandon the organized group theory either way."

"Why's that?" Vick asked.

"There is _nothing_ in the evidence suggesting anything except an organized family out for revenge," Prentiss explained. "Detective O'Hara already said they found nothing to support the other angle. At this rate, it suggests someone with a grudge against the department."

"I think we can give a preliminary profile," Rossi said, accompanied by a nod from Hotchner. "Chief . . ."

"I'll get them over here." Vick walked away.

"Profile?" Shawn muttered to Gus. "It's that easy?" Gus nodded. "So what, they just tell us what the guy does?"

"More than that," Gus answered. "They're going to tell the cops the best ways to catch the guys, and what to look for."

"Dude!" Shawn suddenly said. "I just realized why that one guy looked so familiar."

Gus followed his look. "Agent Rossi?"

"Yeah! Dude, do you remember when I got suspended for throwing . . . something . . . at Chris Ashcroft?"

"Not really, Shawn."

"They made dad come and pick me up instead of let me walk home."

"Was that when we had that serial killer?" Gus' face lit up as he remembered. "Yeah! None of our parents would let us walk home by ourselves."

"He was one of the agents out here to do the profiling thing."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah!" Shawn pointed out the black notebook the profiler was skimming through. "I remember _that_."

"I'm sure a lot of people use those, Shawn."

"Mr. Spencer," Lassiter said suddenly, clapping his hand on his shoulder.

"Lassie!" Shawn said. "Let me guess, you want us to find a quiet spot to stay, preferably as far away as possible?"

"No, actually." Lassie pushed Shawn down into his chair. "I want your ass to stay _right there_ while they're giving the profile, and I want you to _listen_. That way, you know what you're getting into if you go after these wackjobs."

"Thanks, Lassie! You're the best detective ever, man." Lassiter glared at him for half a second before stepping to the front of the assembling cops. "Did that sound like concern?"

"It did."

"Lassie actually _cares_, Gus!"

"Shawn, we do some stupid stuff."

"Aww, like what?"

"I don't know. Break into the aquarium? Nearly get set on fire? Volunteer as night guards at a mummy-cursed museum? Turn into bounty hunters? Do I need to continue?"

"You've made your point incredibly clear, Chocolate Colombo," Shawn murmured. "Did you bring popcorn?"

Gus' elbow nearly knocked him off the chair as he sat down on the other side of Lassiter's desk.

"Now," Vick said, addressing the crowd of police. "The BAU has a preliminary profile of the suspects that they need to present. I need not remind you that this is a high priority case, and this is incredibly important." She stepped to the side, allowing JJ to step forward.

"This is only a preliminary profile," JJ said. "It is not ready to be released to the public yet, and is only represents a portion of our subjects. However, it is important that you know and understand this profile as we need to be prepared for the next wave of abductions. Agent Hotchner?"

"The people we are looking for are likely varied in age, with an older and more well-educated male in charge," Hotchner started. "They are most likely related, whether closely or distantly, and all share one thing in common: they absolutely hate the police department."

"They blame the police for something, most likely the arrest of a family member, that they deem illegal or wrong," Morgan picked up. "This is their way of getting revenge against the police for that."

"They're organized and very well-funded. Committing these crimes requires extensive funding and most likely a fairly large, probably underground complex," Prentiss said.

"So, um, why do they torture?" McNabb asked.

"It's a sign of domination," Rossi explained. "They need to get revenge on the police and the torture is just another way to do so. The leader is sadistic. The revenge aspect was probably only an excuse to carry out his sadistic fantasies."

"So is he . . . gay?"

Reid shrugged. "He does seem to be targeting males, but he may not be homosexual. He more needs the torture as part of the revenge, and the sadism only helps him fulfill that fantasy."

"He has to drive a vehicle large enough to hide at least six people and three captives, meaning he probably drives a cargo van," Rossi said. "Most likely muted in color, with nothing to attract attention to it. These people do _not_ want to get caught."

"That means it will _not_ be easy to head off their next move," Hotchner finished. "We were unable to pin too much of a geographical profile due to the lack of evidence. That means we have no idea where they may strike next or who their next victims are. You need to be extra-cautious." He glanced around. "That's all for now."

They broke up. Hotchner sighed.

"Reid, are you sure you can't get us anything on the geographical?"

Reid shrugged. "Unfortunately, no. It would help if we knew where the security guards were abducted from and where exactly the policemen were taken. The dump sites don't show us much. They're on the outskirts of town but--"

"It's unlikely that they're driving too far," Rossi finished. "They're careful. They aren't going to risk it."

"I think we should head back to the office," Shawn said. "Now that we've figured out who we're looking for, I say we do some google-ing."

"We're stopping for food on the way, Shawn. I'm starving. And 'google-ing' isn't a word."

"It is too. Like paper-maché-ing."

"That isn't a word either."

"Jerk chicken?"

"You know that's right."

The duo stood. "Chief!" Shawn said. "Agents, Lassie, we'll be at the Psych office if you need us. Promise. Bye, Jules."

They left for Gus' car. Rossi shook his head (at least they were gone) and reverted his attention to the piles of folders.

"We should probably get started," he said, grabbing the top five.


	8. Chapter 7: Unfortunate Events

A/N: OMG I'm back. I apologize enormously for the time lag. I broke my writer's block on my original story and am now rewriting nearly the entire 937 page book. *gasp* So that has consumed my past week and a half or so. Special thanks to the-vampire-act for reminding me that this story existed.

More notes go to:

Flash Foreward, eventyraren, CalliM, Auraya-of-the-White, Dybdahl: Thanks!

Muraki Asato: As soon as I got this review I had to go and google that episode, and it TOTALLY WAS LASSIE. I would also like to note that the particular unsub Tim played was shot by Reid. It's a great episode and if you haven't seen it already, you should – definitely one of my favorites in Season 1.

As a warning, the story will take a slightly darker turn now . . . but we will, happily, have Shawn antics and a really pissed off R . . . er, profiler who is yet to be named . . .

And I still, sadly, own nothing; although if I did I guarantee I would be keeping Morgan for myself.

*******

**Chapter 7: A Serious of Unfortunate Events**

Morgan tossed his badge, phones, and gun down on the bed in his hotel room and stretched. _God_, it'd been a long day, with hardly _anything_ to show for it. Sure, Reid and that supposedly psychic duo had done a good job at that former cop's house, but the two files they'd brought had only _added_ to the enormous stack they'd been collecting. One of the few pluses had been accidentally being locked in the records room with Detective O'Hara. Morgan grinned slightly. The little bit of flirting had been fun, that's for sure, but even a blind man could see that she was – consciously or not – attracted to that psychic guy. Shawn.

Reid seemed to like him. Morgan dropped down on the bed and picked up the remote, flicking on the TV. He picked up the case file to go over it again and make sure he hadn't missed anything. He was fairly certain that none of them were buying Shawn's act, but as far as he knew Shawn wasn't hurting anything and seemed to be pretty useful. _If it ain't broke_ . . . Plus, by now, Morgan just trusted Reid's judgment on some things.

It was then he noticed that the closet door was ajar.

Morgan slowly got up, closing the case file and picking up his gun. No good hotel he knew of left the door on the closet ajar. He'd stayed in some seedy places, and this wasn't one of them. And when there were guys out there abducting police officers . . . he thought for a second about calling one of the others, but decided against it. In case there wasn't anything.

He'd made it to the closet when there was a soft step behind him. He spun, directing his gun at the large, ski-masked intruder standing in front of him.

"Get on the ground," Morgan ordered, deciding to go for procedure as opposed to kicking him in the face and demanding to know why he was in his room. That would come.

"Now, Agent Morgan, I just want to talk," the man said lightly.

"I don't feel very talkative right now." Morgan gestured to the ground again. "Get on the ground and keep your hands where I can see them."

The closet door squeaked. Morgan spun again and found his gun thrown out of his hands by a second masked attacker, who then latched onto the agent's arm. In response, Morgan slammed his fist into the man's face, encouraging him to let go.

The other man wrapped one of his arms around Morgan's neck. Morgan slammed his arm back into his solar plexus. As he let go, Morgan spun and launched himself at the other man, who was coming back towards him with a vengeance. He jammed his shoulder into the man's chest, knocking him backwards. The other man, who Morgan _thought_ had been nicely down, tackled him around his waist, knocking them both into the wall with a loud thump. Satisfied that he'd now made enough noise to at least attract Hotchner or Reid, Morgan spun around and pushed him into the wall, lifting him up by his shirt and slamming him into it.

The second man made his reappearance, latching onto Morgan's back and effectively pulling him away from the other attacker. His arm snaked around Morgan's neck again, cutting off his airway. Using all his strength, Morgan launched himself backwards into the other wall. _Where in hell are they?!_

With that, the other man jerked Morgan forward and unpinned the other attacker. Morgan, freed for half a second, dove for his gun only to have something slam into the back of his head and send him into unconsciousness.

One of the men pulled out a roll of duct tape. "We need to hurry. Someone will have heard that."

"Good thing we were prepared for that," his partner said, catching the roll and taping Morgan's feet together. "You move the van outside the window?"

"It's how we got in, dumbass." With Morgan firmly secured, the first man – who easily rivaled the agent at least in build – hefted him over his shoulder and started for the window. The other attacker was already framed by the side door of a blue work van.

"Morgan?" There was a pounding on the door.

"Hurry up!" The man carrying Morgan handed half of his captive to the other one and followed him through.

"Hotch, he's not answering," Reid yelled at his approaching supervisor.

"I'm breaking it down." Hotchner pulled out his gun and prepared to kick in the door.

The van sped out.

Hotchner took a step back outside the door and in a single kick made it fold into a shower of splinters, his gun immediately at the ready. No one needed to enter the room to see the immensity of the struggle that had ensued.

"JJ," Hotchner called over his shoulder, holstering his weapon. "Call Chief Vick. Tell her we need forensics over here immediately."

"She needs to account for _everyone_ on her force, and fast," Rossi added. "He still has two more people to take down."

"How . . ." Prentiss finally found her vocal chords. "This is _Morgan_!"

"Happens to the best," Rossi said, his attempted lightheartedness tempered slightly by uncharacteristic concern. "I think we may need to put sleep on hold."

"As long as we don't have to sleep in the same room," Prentiss said, walking back to hers.

#

"Shawn, you know the office isn't your apartment."

Shawn leaned back in his chair, staring intently at the board with the case details scrawled on it. His NUMB3RS theory had failed (again) and he was reduced to staring it out, tossing the pineapple stress ball he'd found at a garage sale up and catching it repeatedly.

"We're missing something, Gus."

"And you aren't going to solve it by depriving yourself of sleep."

"I have before." Shawn squinted at the board.

"I'm leaving. You better be here in the morning."

"I'll have it _solved_ by morning, Peter Panic." He could feel Gus' glare burning into his back. "Don't worry. I'll only be here a few more hours."

"Good."

"Be careful, Gus."

Gus was halfway out the door when Shawn's statement hit home. "What?"

Shawn spun around in his chair. "We don't know exactly who he's going to take down next."

"Why should I be worried?"

"We're consultants, Gus. We're connected to the police department, even if it is ever-so-slightly. Just . . . be careful."

Gus nodded slowly. "You too. Maybe you should stay at your dad's."

"Only if you stay with your parents."

"Hell no, Shawn."

"Exactly. Don't worry, I'll lock my doors. Oh, and Gus?" Gus turned around again. "Move the spare-key-in-the-rock trick inside until we find this guy?"

Gus shook his head tiredly and left, closing the door behind him.

In all honesty, Shawn wasn't too worried about it.

He stood up and walked back towards the board, scanning it again. There was _something_ they all were missing, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

Either way, Gus was so far on the fringes of the police department that, even if anyone did know his involvement, it wouldn't be worth it.

Shawn tossed the pineapple up and down again. _Damn it, this is frustrating. _

The door to the office creaked. Shawn grinned slightly.

"Gus! I knew you couldn't stay away!" He turned around to come face to face with the barrel of a gun. "Oh."

"You'll be coming with me, psychic."

Shawn glanced around for a weapon. He settled on the helmet perched on the side of his desk, which was within three feet of his hand. A good lunge could get it . . .

"Can we get smoothies along the way?"

The gun came closer. "No."

"Then why would you want me to go somewhere?" Shawn tried his best to not be absolutely terrified. After all, he'd been involved in worse than this.

"Shut up." The gun moved a millimeter as the man went for something in his pocket. Shawn sensed his opportunity and launched forward, slamming his elbow into the man's stomach and grasping his helmet, preparing to swing it at his attacker. As the man recovered, he started forward with the gun again and Shawn swung the helmet at his hand, sending the gun flying behind Gus' desk. The man grabbed Shawn's wrist and wrenched the helmet strap out of his hands, swinging it back at him. He dove to the side, trying to get himself closer to the door. If he could make it outside there was a better chance that he'd get away, and it was _not_ in his evening plans to get abducted by a creepy guy in a ski mask.

Shawn was halfway to the front room when the man pulled him back by wrenching one of his arms behind his back, and slammed him into his desk.

"Ready to go, now, psychic?"

"Not yet . . ." Making a note to apologize to Gus later, Shawn's free hand wrapped around one of the potted plants his partner was so fond of, and he slammed the pot into the man's head. He let go and staggered back as Shawn dove for his phone. He was running out of things to hit this guy with and figured now would be a good time to use his phone-a-friend lifeline.

He had just managed to find Juliet's number when something cracked down across his head, and he collapsed on the floor.

"Jesus," the newcomer said, glaring at the first man, who was staggering back to his feet and holding his head. "You were supposed to have him subdued _before_ we got here with the van."

"We didn't know he was going to give us such a problem!" he protested as the second man started duct-taping the unconscious consultant. "We figured the agent would, but _not_ him. Or else, you would have given me back-up!"

"Come on, before someone starts asking questions." The newcomer hefted Shawn over his shoulder and started out the back door, other man staggering drunkenly after him. He deposited his new captive next to the securely bound and supposedly still unconscious Morgan, and they drove off.

It was about the time the van started moving again that Morgan slit his eyes open. It didn't help the pounding in his head, but neither did the pulsating floorboards in the old work van. He swore inwardly (the tape over his mouth stopped it from being verbally) when he caught sight of the unconscious psychic about two feet away. _So who's the third? Has to be a cop now. They've got an FBI agent and a police consultant, so they've got to go for a detective . . . damn it. Unless they're just going to try and go for a beat cop or something . . . easier to grab. But that wouldn't fit the profile . . . _

"Good evening, Agent Morgan," someone said. He glanced up to see one of his captors, his ski mask off by now. He was fairly average looking, with dark brown hair that nearly covered his right eye. He was too skinny and nervous-looking to have been either of his attackers, and the ice pack he was holding on his head suggested that he probably was out of commission anyway. "I'd keep you up to chat but we still have another person to nab."

Morgan grunted in a way that suggested a question.

"I can't tell you that." With that, the man sat forward and pressed a cloth against his nose. _Chloroform. Not even creative_, Morgan thought as he fought the urge to breathe.

#

Lassiter tossed his jacket down on a chair on his way to the kitchen. This case was _hell_. He poured himself a drink and examined the corkboard on the wall. There were three good cops with a target on their backs out there, and he needed to figure out who they were, and fast.

He stared at the board as if looking for some divine inspiration. It was why he didn't hear the step behind him until it was too late. And by then, his gun was missing from his holster, and digging into the back of his neck. He froze.

"Well, Detective Lassiter," a low voice growled from behind him. "Turn around, and keep your hands where I can see them."

"You arresting me, punk?" Lassiter decided it would be in his best interests to follow his orders, and turned to face him.

The masked man held up a picture. Lassiter glanced at it and then back.

"You really think the psychic means something to me?"

He shrugged and tucked the photograph away. "We thought he might, after you saved his ass a few weeks ago."

"It was a mutual deal." Lassiter inched towards the fruit bowl with one of his many spare weapons stashed in it. "Anyway, you're a psycho with a gun and you can probably use photoshop. How do I know you didn't just fix it up?"

"You'll know soon enough."

With that, Lassiter dove for the fruit bowl, sending it flying but coming up with the spare gun. They stood glaring at each other, each with guns at the ready. Lassiter's finger tightened on the trigger, but he hesitated to pull it.

Another man suddenly emerged, another gun drawn.

"I _told_ you to check _everywhere_," this one snapped at his partner.

"How did I know he had a gun in the _fruit_?" the first one snapped.

"Hate to break this up, guys," Lassiter cut in, "But what in hell is this about?"

"Come with us, Detective," the second man ordered. "And we'll tell you. But not until then."

"He doesn't care about the psychic," the first one snapped.

Lassiter made a break for the stairs. With the other two following – he noted sourly that his car keys were missing – he sprung up the stairs and rocketed into the master bedroom. If all else failed he had a spare gun in his shower, another in the lamp on the bedside table, a third hanging in his closet, and a phone. After locking the door, he grabbed the phone, dialing a familiar number.

"Chief! It's Lassiter. I have a 207 with a 417 in progress at my house involving two individuals — no, I don't know how they got in! I nee –" Chief Vick's voice was suddenly silent and the phone went dead. "Crap."

"Don't make any sudden moves, detective." The door had sprung open.

"Dammit, he called the cops."

Lassiter spun, his gun trained on them again. "I'm arresting you both for breaking and entering. Drop the weapons."

"He's kidding, right?"

"Don't make us shoot you, Detective."

"You're already cop-killers," Lassiter snapped. "I could kill both of you right here, right now."

"Then why haven't you?" A third voice said, emerging from Lassiter's closet.

"What in hell?" Lassiter took a step back to have all three of them in his sight. "You're in my _closet_?!"

"Do you really wear the same thing every day?"

Lassiter decided enough was enough. Taking aim at his first attacker, he fired. Unfortunately, the man from his closet had seemed to sense that he was about to do so and made his own shot, catching the detective in the arm. Lassiter staggered and hit the ground, causing his bullet to only graze the first guy's arm. Before he took aim and fired again, the third man slammed one of Lassiter's own spare guns into the back of his head.

As Lassiter collapsed to the floor, the other men were already busy securing him with another role of duct tape and hefting him to get down the stairs.

"All right!" the closet man barked. "We need to get out of here pronto. The cops are already on their way."

The scrawny man from the back of the van met them at the front door. "Van's here. Let's go."

Within seconds Lassiter was loaded into the van next to Shawn and Morgan, and they were off.

Perhaps minutes after the van left, the scene was swarming with police and a few incredibly pissed FBI profilers.

Hotchner and Rossi, followed by the rest of the team, met Vick at the steps of Lassiter's porch. The crime scene unit was running in and out of the house, and crime scene tape was plastered around the entire yard.

"We heard the call out on the way to the station," Hotchner said as Vick gave him a questioning glance.

"Do you think it's our guys?" Vick asked, glancing back at the house.

"Well, they took an FBI agent. Going back to beat cops wouldn't fit the profile," Rossi explained, echoing Morgan's earlier conclusion. "Lassiter was a logical step."

"We should have seen this." Vick shook her head. "Someone should have."

Reid glanced around, bouncing nervously on his toes again. He knew that Prentiss kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, and knew that she was keeping an eye on him. Yes, he blamed himself for how easy it was to grab Morgan. He should have been over there at the _first_ noise. He'd been too slow. He could have stopped them.

"Reid," Prentiss muttered. "You couldn't have stopped this." He glared at her. How dare she go profiler on him right now?

"Don't profile me, Emily," he hissed, earning a glance from Rossi.

"That isn't profiling, Reid," she answered, turning to talk to one of the forensics team about the scene. With a glance back at JJ, who was currently trying to talk down the four or so large media vans, Reid headed towards the crowd at the edge of the scene. He needed to do _something_.

"Hey!" he said, getting their attention. "Dr. Spencer Reid, with the FBI." He held up his badge. "I need anyone who, uh, might have seen something to talk to either myself, the others on my team, or any of the police. If you haven't, this is a crime scene. There isn't anything special to see here."

He hated gawkers.

But it seemed to work. The crowd slowly started to disperse, and one elderly woman stepped up. "Um, Dr. Reid? I may have seen something."

Reid fished for a pen and his notepad. "Can I have your name?"

"Mrs. Mary Daugherty," she answered, nodding. "I live next door to Detective Lassiter."

"And you think you saw something?"

"Yes. About three minutes ago, I saw a black van speed out of here."

"A black van?"

"Yes. Well, it may have been dark blue, or even red. I don't know. But it was a cargo van."

"Did you see anything else? License plate, model . . ."

"No, but I may have heard a gun go off twice."

Reid paused, his pen hovering over the pad. "You're sure, Mrs. Daugherty?"

"It sounded a lot like a car backfiring, so yes. I may not be an expert, Dr. Reid, but I'm pretty sure that's what a gun sound like."

"About how long before you saw the van were the shots?"

"Maybe a minute."

"Thanks. Can I get a phone number for you?"

She told him her phone number, and he thanked her again before hurrying up to Vick, Hotchner, and Rossi.

"I was just talking to a potential witness," Reid said, motioning with his notepad. "She said she saw a cargo van, and there may have been shots fired about a minute before that."

"They work fast." Vick said with a sigh. "Lassiter was abducted from the master bedroom. The phone line was cut in the middle of our call. So far, from what forensics can see, he may have tried to shoot at his attackers."

"Most of his spare guns are missing," Juliet said, joining them.

"They looked everywhere?"

"Fruit bowl, shower, closet, lamp, everything." Juliet shrugged. "Unless he's added some, then they have all his guns."

"Put an APB on this." Vick handed her a note describing the van, and Juliet hurried off.

"He kept a gun in the _shower_?" Rossi said. Lassiter really needed a hobby.

"Is that so surprising?" Reid asked. He'd figured that about the detective a while ago.

"Either way, he's still abducted and probably wherever Morgan is," Hotchner said. "We need to focus. We've seen what these guys can do and we need to make sure they don't have the chance."

"Do we have any idea who the third is?"

"Maybe they haven't abducted them yet," Vick said, turning to Juliet as she returned. "Have you put at an APB on the van?"

"And on Lassiter and Morgan," she said with a curt nod. "Every cop in the city is looking for them."

"I wish we could have been here faster," Vick said. "The only patrol in the area was McNabb and I told him to wait for backup."

"Would they have known there weren't any patrols here?" Hotchner asked. Vick shrugged.

"Probably not. Lassiter picked a fairly quiet neighborhood, there's rarely a need to patrol here. But your hotel is in the city, so there are far more patrols there." She sighed. "O'Hara, I'm heading back to the station. Have you gotten a hold of Mr. Spencer yet?"

"Not yet, Chief," Juliet said. "I'm going to try calling Gus, but Shawn isn't picking up."

"Keep trying. He needs to know about this." Vick strode towards her car. Hotchner turned back to his agents.

"Reid, Prentiss, take JJ and head to the station. Keep working on the profile. I'm going to wait until the scene is cleared with Rossi and we'll see what we can find out. We'll meet you back there."

Prentiss elbowed Reid towards the SUVs.

"And, Reid?" He turned at his supervisor's call. "Let's _not_ tell Garcia about this yet?"

Reid nodded mutely and climbed into the passenger seat, letting Prentiss take the wheel. He needed to think.

What were they missing?

#

Reid and Prentiss let JJ talk to the Chief about the inevitable press conference and regrouped at the boards. After a few minutes of back and forth talking, Prentiss offered to find coffee. Reid agreed and let her disappear before sinking down into a chair, glaring at the board.

It should have been him.

He started mulling over just _why_ it should have been him, staring blankly at the board as if blaming himself would give them some sort of breakthrough in the case.

"Hey, Reid." Reid snapped out of his thoughts to focus on the coffee in front of him. "You ok?"

"Stop profiling me," Reid muttered again.

"Reid, I don't need to be a profiler to see you're blaming yourself." Prentiss sat down across from him.

"It should be me," Reid said.

"What?"

"It should be me, Em. _I'm_ the one with the 'please abduct me' sign." She fought to hide a grin at the fact that he actually used air quotes. "_I'm_ the serial killer magnet."

"Reid . . . you know," Prentiss said, taking a sip of her coffee. "When we were in Georgia, I seem to remember Morgan saying something very similar."

Reid nearly jumped. "Huh?"

"I seem to remember Morgan saying, at least once, that it should be him in that chair."

Reid tried to digest this new information. He decided to pass it off with a head shake. "Of course he'd say that."

"Stop blaming yourself, Reid. It comes with the job." He shook his head and started to open his mouth. "Say it again and I swear I'll hit you." She pointed at him threateningly.

"If I had been just a few seconds faster," Reid stubbornly continued. "If I had been just a little faster, I could have gotten in there and helped him out."

"And they would have just taken you with him," Prentiss continued. "These guys can take down _cops_, Reid. You're good with the brains, but when it comes to the brawn department, you don't have much. That's why we keep both you _and _Morgan around. Now come on." Prentiss stood back up to scan the board. "Help me figure out what we're missing."

"Well," Reid started, not feeling much better. "They abduct three victims, all at approximately the same time."

"So we're missing our third victim, and it's safe to assume they already have him."

"They're only abducting men."

"Which means that women probably don't factor into their plans."

"And makes it more likely that it's revenge," Reid said, looking back at the stack of files. "How many of these cases involve people who demanded revenge?"

"Over half of them."

"We need to go through these." Reid started dividing them up. "The answer is somewhere in here."

"Hey guys," JJ said, joining them. "Can I help?"

"We're just going through these to look for the most promising revenge cases."

"Look for ones with family connections who have money," Reid said, opening the first one. "Lots of money. This isn't cheap."

"They have to have somewhere soundproof to keep them," JJ agreed, opening one of the other files.

"What I don't understand," Prentiss started. "Why one of us? It doesn't fit the mode of a revenge killer."

"It's a power-authority revenge killer, apparently," Reid answered, putting his first file aside and picking up another.

"I didn't think that was possible."

"It's possible but highly unlikely. If the person blames law enforcement in general for whatever happened to them, then everyone – local, state, and federal – are targets of revenge."

"So what if our third victim was a state cop?"

"It's possible. No reports have come in, though."

"The last group had a state cop in it," Reid mused.

"So?"

"It's unlikely he'd repeat."

"He may have."

"It's not impossible, just unlikely."

"Then who _does_ he have?"

The police scanner in the corner crackled into life. _Units asked to report to the Psych office. 211 reported, potential 201. _

The three agents stopped and dropped their files.

"What about a police consultant?" Prentiss asked needlessly. She didn't need to explain for the second time that a 201 suggested abduction.

"I'll stay here," JJ said. "You get over there. I'll call Hotch and Rossi."

Prentiss and Reid were already halfway out the door after the Chief.

#

"Juliet? Yeah, I'm there now. His bike's still here, so he probably fell asleep and didn't hear the phone. We'll be right over."

Gus parked and stepped out of his car. Leave it to Shawn to be dead asleep in the office not twenty minutes after he'd left. Gus headed towards the door, fumbling for the right key. Not only that, but Lassiter had just gone missing. If anything, Shawn's trusty police scanner should have woken him up when a signal came over requesting assistance at Lassiter's own _house_.

Gus went to put the key in the door and it creaked open on its own.

"Shawn?!" he called in. "Dammit, Shawn, how many times to I tell you to make sure the door's closed?" Gus stepped inside, standing in shock for half a second before flipping out his phone again and dialing 911. "This is Burton Guster down at the Psych office. Someone broke in, and Shawn's missing."

#

They pulled up to a cacophony of noises and flashing lights at the office. Vick beelined for the man sitting on a bench outside, talking to McNabb.

"Mr. Guster." He jumped to his feet.

"Chief, Detective O'Hara just called me. I was coming back to get Shawn. She said she hadn't heard from him. I—"

"Slow down," Vick said.

"Sorry." Gus took a deep breath. "Shawn stayed here to keep working on the case. I got here and found his bike, and figured he'd just fallen asleep. But the door was open, and when I pushed it in, I saw _that_." Gus motioned towards the office. "It's totally wrecked."

"Stay here." Vick motioned to Prentiss and Reid.

They dodged one of the forensics team and ducked under the crime scene tape, walking into the office.

"Damn," Prentiss said, glancing around. Gus hadn't been lying when he'd said the office was a wreck.

"What do you have for us?" Vick said, addressing one of the CSIs.

"Well," he said. "It looks like he was ambushed from behind. There was a nasty struggle, and . . . it looks like a second attacker entered from the back door and knocked Shawn unconscious as he was trying to dial the phone. They probably carried him out that way." He pointed towards the back door.

"Chief," one of the other CSIs called, kneeling down behind Gus' desk. "I've got a gun here."

"What type?"

"Looks like some sort of service weapon." He held it up. Vick closed her eyes.

"That's one of the highway patrol weapons," she said with a heavy sigh. "From the last victims."

"These are them then." Prentiss nodded. "We'll head back and keep working on the profile. Let us know when anything comes through."

They walked back out to the SUV.

"Everything happening," Prentiss said, once they were in the SUV, "If I didn't know better, would sound too much like a domestic terrorist cell."

"Maybe that's what they want us to think," Reid mused as they pulled out, heading back towards the station. Prentiss shrugged.

"Maybe."

#

Shawn finally realized that the weird sensation on his arm was probably wood. Rough wood, not like the office. That cut out having fallen _in_ the office then. And it was moving, which was a definite downer to that theory had the wood not been enough. On top of that, there was that sticky stuff over his mouth that tasted faintly of adhesive. That left only a few options.

The first was that Lassie finally taped his mouth shut. Viable, but unless Lassie had gone all dirty cop on him and finally kicked the shit out of him on top of it, it didn't explain why he was unconscious _or_ had the mother of all headaches.

The second was that someone else had finally taped his mouth shut. His bet was either on his father or Gus. Either of them could have tied him up too. Actually, he wouldn't put it past his dad to give in and just duct tape him to a chair someday. Would that be considered child abuse? Probably. Damn it, that theory was gone.

The third was that he had been kidnapped and they'd taped his mouth shut.

A quick glance through slit eyes indicated that both the first and second options were most likely out. For one, the shoes he could see at the end of his peripheral vision indicated that Lassiter was lying nearby. Laying? No, lying. And Lassiter didn't lie. Lye? No, that was a type of soap. Lie. At least, Shawn was pretty sure that those were Lassiter's shoes. _How'd they get Lassie's shoes?_ And on his other side was that one agent – Derek Morgan. Plus, on top of that, they were in a van. A work van. With old wooden floors. That put it as a very old van, at the least.

He judged by the lack of movement exhibited by either of his companions – assuming that Lassiter's shoes were connected to the rest of him – that they were unconscious. It was cemented when a hand came into view, applying a cloth over Morgan's face. _What did Gus say about chloroform? That it had to continually be administered? That's right. So they're keeping him down. Looks good for me, then._

A kick to his legs made him jump, aggravating the headache pounding behind his eyes. He looked up at the man who looked about the right build to have been his attacker.

"Awake, are you?" He kicked him again. Shawn noted the ice pack held to his head with slight pride. _That'll teach you to mess with a plant!_ _They ALWAYS win!_ He missed whatever the man said next and was brought back with a kick to his stomach, forcing him to curl up.

"Hey. There'll be more than enough time for this," another voice said. Shawn glanced over at a bulky man sitting against the side of the van. "Knock his ass back out and sit back down."

"With _pleasure_," the scrawny guy said, raising the gun he was holding. Shawn decided to close his eyes instead of focus on the gun's descent towards him.

*************************

OoOoOh snap. It isn't Reid this time. Sorry, the-vampire-act. I wanted to take pity on the poor kid . . . But don't worry, he's going to get a lot of airtime soon . . .

I will try to edit & update the next couple of chapters within the week. Promise.


	9. Chapter 8: Analysts and Profilers

To all my wonderful reviewers, who all basically say the same thing: I love you guys!! You make me feel very good about my writings. :) Hope you don't mind that some of you are getting referred to as "my rabid fans" whenever I make a comment that I need to update this. If makes me feel warm and fuzzily inside.

I feel really, really, really bad about the whole not-updating-for-months thing. I have this little problem called "school," and my parents are paying for me to go to school, not write fanfic (sadly enough). I hope you all understand.

Now that we're in full swing in both seasons I'd like to note that this takes place in both season breaks, so over the summer (ignoring the CM finale). So therefore nothing from Psych season 4 or the team's issue with the Reaper going after Hotch has happened. (Speaking of which – season premiere – EEEHHH! Awesome!)

And, as usual, I own nothing.

**Chapter 8: For the Record, Angry FBI Technical Analysts Angry FBI Profilers**

Lassiter groaned. He was sitting up, propped up against something. Or someone -- it seemed like whatever it was might be breathing. He felt like someone had set off a pound of C-4 inside his head. Perhaps a cannon on top of that -- maybe a Gatlin. It would, at least, explain the pounding. He hadn't had a migraine like this . . . well, _ever_, and there _was_ that pesky gunshot wound in his arm that hurt like hell . . .

He decided to risk opening his eyes and scanned the basement he found himself in. Soundproofing on the walls. Red stains on the floor. There were two doors, both set in the wall opposite him. The floor seemed to be cement. Lassiter tried to move his arms. Cuffed behind him. He didn't seem to be shackled to the floor, though. He tried to stand.

"Dammit, Detective!"

Lassiter found himself in a situation straight out of hell.

He was kidnapped by a group of unstable cop killers.

And he was handcuffed to two other people – which made running difficult, to say the least. But that voice sounded familiar . . .

"Agent Morgan?"

"Yeah." Came the definitive reply. "They haven't been back since they left us down here. They only had me out with chloroform, so I guess I came around the fastest."

"Who else do they have?"

"Spencer."

"Yours or mine?"

Morgan chuckled, and Lassiter would have hit him. This was _not_ a time for amusement. "Yours. Mine's probably having a panic attack right now and telling anyone who'll listen that he should be the one stuck here."

Not only was he handcuffed to an FBI agent, he was handcuffed to that damned psychic.

To hell with the beatings. _This_ would be torture.

#

"What do we have?" Hotchner asked immediately upon reaching the table.

"Forensics said that Spencer tried calling Detective O'Hara around 10:35, meaning he was abducted about that time," Vick said, hardly turning from the boards.

"Shots were heard around 10:44 and the van was seen speeding out of Lassiter's house around 10:55," Reid added.

"How long does it take to get from the Psych office to Lassiter's house?"

"About ten minutes if you do the speed limit," Gus supplied.

"And Morgan was abducted around 10:20," Prentiss said.

"Which works, because it takes approximately fifteen minutes to get from your hotel to the Psych office," Juliet added. JJ carefully set her hand on Juliet's shoulder, making the detective jump slightly. Juliet seemed to be blaming herself for (at least) Shawn's abduction, considering the fact that he had tried – and failed – to call her in the middle of it. The call had never gone through, but it had still registered as 'Missed' on her phone for the half-second it had connected.

"So we have a timeline," Rossi said. "Morgan is abducted at 10:20. Spencer is abducted at 10:35. And Lassiter is abducted at 10:55."

"Someone had to be waiting for each of them," Gus said. "I had only left the office at 10:32-ish. That's minutes before the van could have gotten there."

"Didn't Lassiter say there were two people waiting for him when he got home?"

"Three, if forensics can be trusted," Hotchner said. "They said it looked like someone was hiding in his closet, also."

"They expected him to head for the master bedroom?" Vick asked.

"Serial killers make the best profilers," Rossi said with a heavy sigh. "So each one had someone waiting for them. They subdued them and then threw them in the van when it came, and then left."

"So that means there's at least eight UnSubs," Reid said.

"How do you figure?" Vick asked.

"Well, there's evidence that there were two for Morgan, then two for Shawn, and three for Detective Lassiter. And, you'd need one to drive the van."

"How did you do on the cases?" Hotchner asked. JJ stepped in, holding up the smaller pile.

"We determined that these were the best candidates." She dropped them onto the table. "They're all perpetrators with wealthy families that could best carry something like this out."

"Do you know if Garcia left yet?" Hotchner asked.

"I haven't called her," Reid said. "You told me –"

"I told you not to tell her that Morgan's missing, but we need her. I'll call her."

Hotchner walked away, dialing his phone.

"He doesn't want us to say Morgan's missing?" JJ asked, taking a seat.

"It'd kill her," Prentiss answered. "Do _you_ want to tell Penelope Garcia that her – what'd she call him? 'Statuesque god of sculpted chocolate thunder?' – is missing?"

JJ paused. "Oh. She should know, though. So what's he going to tell her?"

They all looked back at the SAC, who ripped the phone away from his ear and glared at it before returning to the group.

"Reid, here."

"Garcia?"

_REID?! _Reid jerked the phone away and held it nearly at arm's length. They could all hear her. _What in hell is wrong?! Do you know what _time_ it is here?_

"Garcia, Garcia, calm down."

There were several deep breaths on the other end. _What happened, Reid?!_

"We're . . . we're not sure. But . . . um . . . Garcia . . . Morgan's missing."

There was a high-pitched scream and the sound of something hitting something else on the other end. They all jumped, pretty sure glass had to have shattered somewhere. Gus was trying to piece together that this was the same cheery voice he'd heard over the phone earlier.

_I'm flying out there._

"Garcia, no. You're more useful where you are. We need you back at your computers."

_I can't just stay here!_

"Penelope," JJ said, calmly taking the phone. "We need you at your computers."

There was deep breathing and then JJ was able to safely put the phone on speaker. _All right. I'll head over there with Kevin right now. What will you need me to do? And no, I do NOT want Hotch telling me what to do right now. No offense, sir._ Hotchner shrugged, admitting defeat.

"Run every existing dark-colored van in the state of California against these names." Prentiss read them off. "Also, look for _anything_ that may suggest their involvement."

_As soon as I know you will._

"And try to sleep at some point."

_You too, kids. Reid, I didn't –_

"I know, Garcia."

_Same to you, Hotch._

"It'll work out, Garcia. Hang in there."

_Click_.

"She did _not_ sound happy," Gus observed, coming out of shock.

"You have no idea," JJ and Prentiss said in unison.

Rossi looked up at the whiteboard with the names scrawled on it, it what appeared to be JJ's handwriting. "We have a lot of names," he said with a slight nod.

"She'll find something." Hotchner rubbed the bridge of his nose, a nervous habit he'd somehow picked up. "Reid, Prentiss, JJ, go back to the hotel and get some sleep."

"No way in hell," Reid answered defiantly. "I wouldn't be able to sleep."

"Hotch, I'll need you at the press conference," JJ said. "Nice and _awake_. You need your sleep too."

"I'll be fine."

"Agent Hotchner, I'm sure that Agents Reid and Rossi could cover everything just fine. I was about to grab some sleep in the break room as it is," Vick said with a smile. "Go back and get some sleep. We'll call you if anything changes." She started to walk away. "Mr. Guster, I suggest you – Oh damn it." Vick put her forehead in her hand. "I'm going to have to tell Henry."

"Chief, I'll tell him in the morning," Gus volunteered. "That way, he can just come down here himself and yell at everyone in the same spot."

"Thank you, Mr. Guster." She smiled and nodded. "Now you get some rest."

"I will, Chief." He headed towards the parking lot.

"Cross our hearts, Aaron, we'll call you," Rossi said with a broad grin. "Either you load yourself in that SUV, or I'll help JJ and Prentiss move you."

"You drive a hard bargain, Dave." Hotchner joined the other two agents on the walk to the SUV, and Rossi turned back to Reid.

"Stop being so hard on yourself."

He hated profilers sometimes. "I'm going to get some coffee. You want some?"

"Sure." Rossi watched the younger agent's retreating form and sank down at the table.

"What does the profile say?" Juliet asked suddenly. Rossi nearly jumped.

"Hm?"

"Are they still okay? Or would they start torturing them immediately?"

Rossi scanned Juliet's worried face. "Your partner is fine. I doubt they'll start at midnight. They're probably asleep, and Morgan and Detective Lassiter are busy planning an escape. That they hopefully won't try." He shrugged. "We'll have the press conference tomorrow that will assure the kidnappers we are in no way close to apprehending them, someone may or may not call in a tip, and Garcia will call us and tell us that it's someone on that board. We'll break into their house and the three of them will be standing in the kitchen cooking dinner and asking us what took us so long. I hear Morgan makes some damned good chicken." Juliet couldn't help a smile. "We'll find them."

"I think I'm going to grab some sleep in the break room, then," Juliet said as the Chief reappeared with some blankets and pillows and then disappeared into her office. "Now that it's free."

As he watched her leave, Rossi prayed to whatever deity was on duty that he was right.

#

"Detective, can you please _stop _struggling like that."

"Morgan, if we're going to be handcuffed together . . ."

"Fine. _Lassiter_. Stop struggling."

Shawn groaned and opened his eyes. He was facing a cement wall covered in grey soundproofing. At least, he thought it was grey. It was so dark that it may have been purple, for all he knew.

"Lassie-face?" He moaned, trying to clear his head.

"God, he's awake."

"It's nice to hear you too." Shawn shook his head again. "What'd I miss?" he piped up cheerily.

"It's been about four hours," Morgan answered. "We're _trying_ to sleep in shifts but _Lassiter_ here won't stop trying to wriggle out of his cuffs."

"At least I'm _trying_," Lassiter defended.

"And you were _shot_," Morgan reminded him. "Look. I told you. We need to wait for them to come back in so we can best gauge our next move."

"Lassie, you were _shot_?"

"There were three of them and they had guns, _Spencer_. What the hell did you want me to do? Invite them to a _séance_?"

"It would have been more creative. I, at least, hit mine over the head with a plant."

"Guys," Morgan said. "Stop it. I am _not_ going to be stuck in a basement with you two bickering like that."

"He started it," Shawn whined.

"Just . . . Lassiter, stop fidgeting so I can get some sleep."

Lassiter groaned as Morgan closed his eyes.

There was an almost unbearable silence for about a half hour. Shawn couldn't stand it any longer, and started humming _Thriller_, which happened to be the first thing that came to mind. _Oddly appropriate, too._

Lassiter rolled his eyes. The humming was getting annoying, but he knew that waking Morgan up again was inviting death. So he let Shawn hum. For another half hour.

"Spencer!" he finally barked. "Knock it off!"

"Lassie . . ." Shawn moaned, the detective's voice aggravating the already insane headache. "_Really_? I wasn't doing anything!"

"You were humming! Do you have any idea how _annoying_ that is?"

"I may have a concussion, Lassie, and you wanna tell me how annoying it is that I'm awake?"

Lassiter was suddenly hit with a pang of concern. That must have been why he hadn't woken up for so long. It must be major for him to have been out that long . . . He let it pass. "Yes, Spencer. For all you know—"

"You two just can't stop, can you?"

Both Lassiter and Shawn froze.

"He was humming," Lassiter finally said.

"Yeah, and I was sleeping. I let you get nearly a full four hours before I woke you up so I could get some shut-eye."

"He was humming," Lassiter weakly reasserted.

"I may have a concussion," Shawn threw in.

"Fabulous," Morgan said. "I swear, either of you wake me up again, and I _will_ kill you. When we get out of here, ask Reid. I've threatened it before."

Granted, that had been during Reid's drug problem and he'd needed a place to crash _away _from the vial of dilaudid in his medicine cabinet that Morgan wasn't supposed to know about.

"We're cuffed, remember?" Lassiter snapped.

"I'm from Chicago. I know how to kill someone in cuffs."

"If you're so good at getting out of cuffs, then _why AREN'T you_?!"

And the door slammed open.

"Congratulations, Detective Lassiter," Shawn said, still wincing from Lassiter's yelling and the echoing of the door hitting the wall. "You've won the million dollar prize."

"Shawn. Shut up," Morgan muttered. "We need to gauge the situation and your smartass comments won't help."

Silently, Shawn agreed, and resolved to keep his mouth shut as best he could. He closed his eyes away from the lights shining towards them. _I hate concussions_.

"So," the man in front – Lassiter determined he looked like the guy from his closet (it sounded so disturbing to say) – said. "You're all awake." No one answered. He strode forward with the other two accompanying him. "Detective Lassiter."

"Yeah."

"Do you remember me?" It was more of a statement than a question. The man crouched down in front of him. "Well?"

Lassiter stayed silent, earning him a hard right hook to the side of his head.

"There is _no_ need for this."

"Shut up, Agent." One of the others snarled. "This is between the detective and our boss."

"No. I don't recognize you," Lassiter forced out. He was lucky that fist hadn't broken his jaw. It hurt though, just adding to the throbbing gunshot wound still turning the sleeve of his dress shirt red.

"A pity." The man stood. "I'm looking for revenge. For a sister. Falsely accused."

The man stepped back into the sight of both Morgan and Shawn, and they immediately scanned him.

_Mid thirties, real Rolex. Salt and pepper hair, cut short, clean shaven, wearing a fairly nice suit. Probably a businessman of some sorts. Has a gun in the back of his pants. My best guess is that he's an anger-excitation sociopath. Asking for pity will probably not work. After all, the profile says that he's only in this for the torture. Revenge is just a cover._ Morgan shifted slightly to keep his eyes on the man at all times.

_Dude, is that a real Rolex?_ Shawn's mind whirled, not helping his headache. _He's got some money. Gun in the back of his pants – only idiots who don't mind blowing off sensitive body parts do that. He's probably a businessman. I bet Gus would know what that suit was. I'd say he works in construction, judging by the calluses on his hands. Probably self-made, at that. Doesn't look like he gives a damn. That's not good. _

"My name is Brossart. Stuart Brossart. Does that name ring a bell, Detective?" He paced out of the other two's sight again.

"_Jody_ Brossart?" Lassiter asked, being rewarded with another strike across his face.

"You shouldn't be able to speak her name freely," Stuart said, threateningly wagging his finger at him. "You helped put her away for _nothing_."

"I wasn't even a detective for that case!" Lassiter argued. "I was still a beat cop when she went to prison! I didn't even _work_ that case."

Stuart kicked Lassiter in the stomach as he straightened up, making him double over. Morgan and Shawn were jerked in the process. As he walked away Lassiter toyed with the idea of kicking him . . . but decided that tact would be a better option this particular day.

"What about you, psychic? You know about the Jody Brossart case?"

"Dude, I'm pretty sure I was in _Jersey_ when that went down," Shawn mumbled. "Maybe Thailand. Somewhere far away from here."

"You can't psychically _glean_ anything?" Stuart made a motion around his head.

"Not when you do something totally uncool like _that_," Shawn retorted before jamming his mouth shut. It didn't keep Stuart's size 15 from impacting his side, causing him to curl into a ball.

"What about you, Agent Morgan?" Stuart directed his attention to the remaining captive. Morgan smiled grimly.

"I profile serial killers, serial rapists, terrorists, and arsonists," Morgan replied. "Your _Jody_ any one of these? If she isn't, I'm pretty sure I've never heard of her before." Morgan's reply earned him a generous right hook. He grinned. "You want some defense classes, jackass? Shawn can hit better than that!"

Shawn wanted desperately to comment, but knew that Brossart was about to deliver another when Lassiter piped up. "She was running with a drug cartel." He coughed, still trying to get oxygen back into his system. "When they busted it, they found out that _Brossart_ was actually the ringleader. She's in federal prison for racketeering and narcotics charges."

"She was in the wrong place at the wrong time!" Stuart declared before parading out the door, followed by his two cohorts. The door slammed and locked.

"Well, now we know what he wants," Morgan said.

"And that's _good_?" Lassiter asked. "Spencer?"

"I'm fine," he moaned. Stuart had decided to kick him in the same spot as his scrawny companion had earlier, and it aggravated the existing bruise. "He just got with the skinny guy who grabbed me and got me in the same spot."

"Lassiter." Morgan leaned slightly over to the detective. "Look. This is going to suck, but we need to get as much of this as we can directed towards us."

"Why is that?"

"He's a _civilian_." Morgan's tone suggested who he was talking about. "Us? This is a risk with our jobs. We're trained to face . . . well . . . He's a _consultant_. He shouldn't even be here."

Lassiter nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, we're going to need to be in good shape to risk an escape either way. And knowing his luck," Lassiter slightly jerked his head back towards the psychic. "He'll get himself shot."

"Sadly enough I have to agree. But we need to try and keep that from happening."

Lassiter groaned and wished he had a wall to lean back on. "I wish I was stuck with McNabb."

"I heard that, Lassie."

"All right," Morgan said, drawing their attention back before they could start bickering. "Spencer, you understand what's going to happen to you here, right?"

Shawn nodded (_Sadly enough, I do_) and then cleared his throat. "Yep. I'm gonna feel like Bruce Willis at the end of a Die Hard movie."

"As long as we're clear. This guy is an anger-excitation sociopath. He's claiming to exhibit anger _displacement_, but it's dubitable due to the torture. Not impossible, but dubitable. If you plead, it won't do anything. If you scream, it'll excite him more. But if you don't, it'll only piss him off."

"Isn't anger-excitation usually used for rapists?"

"Not always." Morgan sighed. "Unfortunately. As it is, you can try whatever you think may work but . . ."

"It won't work."

"Exactly."

"Now what?"

"Lassiter, keep Spencer awake. And I swear to _God_, if either of you wake me up again . . ." Morgan closed his eyes, hoping it would be enough to get at least an hour's worth of sleep before the torture started.


	10. Chapter 9: Why Henry Spencer is Scary

OMG! More than one update!!!

The-vampire-act: No, but he's about to be epic. And yes, you _are_ one of my rabid fans. ;)

Everyone else: Thank you.

As always: I only own Morgan. And actually, I don't.

**Chapter 9: If We Got Garcia and Mr. Spencer Together . . . **

Chief Vick walked out of her office to accept the change of clothes from her husband. "I brought breakfast," he offered after her clothes, holding up a bag. "No, it isn't from McDonald's. I cooked it."

"Thanks."

He grinned. "I know how hard this case is for you. Hang in there?"

"I will." Vick headed for the bathrooms to grab a quick shower and change. She left her office door open as she downed her breakfast (never more thankful that her husband understood her than in that moment). Hotchner knocked on the frame minutes later.

"The rest of the team is back. JJ scheduled the press conference for about noon."

"I'll be ready." Vick glanced at her clock. Nearly seven, on the dot. Her phone rang. "This is Chief Vick."

_Chief!_ _I wanted to warn you that a very _very_ angry Mr. Spencer is headed for the station._

"How 'angry' are we talking about, Mr. Guster?"

_Let's just say that Godzilla would probably back down for him._

"Great. I'll prep the front desk."

_I'll be about a minute behind him. _

"All right."

_Have you heard anything?_ Gus' voice rang with desperation.

"Not yet, Mr. Guster. See you in a few minutes."

Vick left her office and headed for the desk as Reid and Rossi walked in, both holding large cups of coffee. "Gentlemen, Mr. Guster just called Henry Spencer."

One of the officers at the desk went pale.

"Just . . . McNabb!"

"Chief?"

"Funnel Mr. Spencer and Mr. Guster into my office as soon as they arrive. It's safest."

"Yes, Chief."

Vick walked back to her office. "Agent Hotchner?"

"Chief?"

"Guster just notified Henry Spencer about Spencer's disappearance."

"I'm assuming you would like me to help explain to a volatile ex-officer why his son is missing?"

"You read me like a book, Agent," Vick said with a half-smile. "Mr. Spencer will be hard to miss walking in here, so if you could just join us when he gets here . . ."

"I'll be in there."

"Hotch!" Reid yelled. He turned and returned to the boards. Vick sighed and sat down at her desk.

Outside, a battered beige-colored truck pulled into the parking lot as if something was chasing it. Behind it was Gus' blue Echo, traveling a little less erratically. Henry jumped out of the truck, hardly pausing to pull his keys out of the ignition, and stormed into the station. Gus ran after him.

"Mr. Spencer!" McNabb immediately intercepted him. "Chief Vick needs y--"

"That's where I was headed," Henry half-snarled as he continued to stomp by him.

"I'm sorry, McNabb," Gus said. "He's—"

"We were warned. She wants you in her office too."

"Thanks." Gus hurried after Henry, who was being avoided by mostly everyone in the station as he stormed into Vick's office. Gus followed him in and they were joined by Hotchner, who closed the door.

"Where is he?" Henry demanded.

"We don't know, Henry," Vick said. "Sit. Please."

"I'll stand. Now where's—"

"Henry! Sit."

Henry dropped into one of the chairs. "Fine, Karen. But I want to know where Shawn is."

"Henry, this is Agent Hotchner, with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit," Vick motioned towards the agent. "One of his agents is missing, as is our Detective Lassiter."

Henry rubbed his forehead. "So my son's been abducted by those same crackpots who've been torturing and killing cops, who also now have Carlton and a federal agent?"

"We don't really use the word 'crackpot,'" Hotchner said. "But yes."

"Shit." Henry leaned back. "He's not a cop, he's a consultant! Why the hell do they think that–"

"We're still working on the _why_." Vick cut him off. "As of right now there's nothing to indicate that he was any more than a high-profile target loosely associated with the police department."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"Absolutely not. But I assure you, we're doing everything we can."

"Now, Henry," Vick said, pointing a pen at him threateningly. "If you even _think_ of going after these people yourself . . ."

"You'll kill me yourself, I know." Henry waved it off. "What can I do?"

"If you _really_ want to be useful," Vick said. "Let us do our job." Henry glared at her. "Mr. Guster, had Shawn figured out anything before you left the office last night?"

Gus shook his head. "No. He was working on trying to figure out what we were missing."

"How had it been going?"

Gus shrugged. "Not as well as he wanted to. It was like he couldn't make . . . see anything."

Hotchner stayed silent, watching a silently seething Henry.

"Did anyone check Lassiter's board?" Gus asked.

"The one in his kitchen?" He nodded. "We checked it, but he had made about as much progress as everyone else."

"So are we back to square one?" Gus sat back in his chair.

"And no closer to finding Shawn." Henry went to get up.

"Henry . . ." Vick pointed, and he sank back down.

"That may not be . . ." Hotchner said. "Chief. We need to get the information out about the van at Lassiter's abduction."

"That's forcing their hand!" Henry argued, half jumping to his feet and sinking down as Vick pointed at the chair. "We have no idea what might happen if we do that."

"It is." Hotchner shook his head. "There's two things that it will do. The first is that I will make them get rid of the van."

"And the second?" Vick asked.

"They'll try to find whoever put them at the scene."

"But that endangers the witness," Gus said. "Doesn't it?"

"Unless we put our own 'witness' out there," Hotchner answered before Vick could.

"And have a cop as a witness?" Henry half chuckled. "I'm pretty sure they'd catch that."

"They think they're incredibly intelligent. Cop or no cop, they could take the witness out as easily as their previous victims."

Vick was silent for a second. "Who would we use?"

"I'll do it."

Hotchner, Vick, and Gus turned to look at Henry.

"Mr. Spencer, I'm not sure—"

"Agent Hotchner." Henry got to his feet. "At this point, most of Santa Barbara knows that Shawn and I have problems. That being said, it would _not_ be beyond me to be at the Psych office late at night. Unless you put some poor lackey from hotel security out there, then the only place left that you could put someone is Detective Lassiter's house, which would be too obvious." Henry took a breath. "Unless you want to use Gus, which would be completely understand-"

"I'm good if he wants to volunteer," Gus said, inwardly denying the fact that he would be the most obvious choice.

"As long as you know the risk of having a group of at least eight cop killers attacking your house," Hotchner said.

"I need to be doing something."

"And with that being said, police protection would let us keep an eye on you, Henry, so you don't do something stupid." He glared at Vick poisonously. "Stay here until I arrange for your protection. Mr. Guster, in case placing a large police force around Henry is not obvious enough, I want you to stay here as much as possible."

"Of course."

Hotchner left the office and returned to the boards. "Anything?"

"I'm triangulating the three abductions with the previous scenes," Reid said. "I'll let you know when I come up with something."

"Garcia and I are still running backgrounds on our suspects," Prentiss explained, looking up from the laptop. "So far, there haven't been any red flags."

"Rossi and Detective O'Hara went on another coffee run, and I'm finishing my script," JJ said, running a hand through her hair.

"We're going to announce that we have a witness under police protection. Can you place a plant in the audience?" Hotchner ignored the fact that his other two agents' heads flew up.

"O-of course," JJ said, slightly taken aback herself. "I'll just have to make a phone call."

"We're going to put the witness at Lassiter's house in danger?" Prentiss asked.

"No. Mr. Spencer has volunteered to pose as the witness. His name will not be revealed but a large police presence will be at his house, hopefully drawing them out," Hotchner explained. "It's dangerous but it may be all we have."

Rossi and Juliet re-entered the station, returning to the tables and handing out the coffees.

"Is there anything new?" Juliet asked hopefully.

JJ stood. "Let me run through the press conference with you." They walked back to Juliet's desk. "What we're doing is announcing that the FBI is taking over the case." Juliet started to open her mouth. "We aren't. We're just making the UnSubs believe we are."

Juliet sighed, but it was still obvious she didn't really trust the agent's word. "Then what?"

"I'm going to drop both Hotch's and Rossi's names. The media attention that will be attracted, at least to Rossi, will probably distract the leader. One of the main qualities of this type of leader is that he'll be drawn to the fact that," JJ grinned and made air quotes. "'The' Rossi is out here to find him. It may encourage contact with the media from him.

"We're going to describe the van."

"That'll infer that there's a witness," Juliet said. "Won't they go after them?"

"Mr. Spencer has volunteered to have police protection to pose as the witness," JJ explained. Juliet's eyes widened.

"Shawn's _father_?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"We're going to make it painfully easy to see that he's the 'witness,'" JJ explained. "Hotchner is making a call to our field office to see if we can have undercovers in the area as well. We want to draw them out."

Juliet slowly nodded. "What do you need me to do?"

JJ sighed. "For one, you're temporarily in Detective Lassiter's position. As such, you'll need to be at the conference along with Chief Vick. And at the very least, I need you prepared."

"All right. Now what?"

"I need to fill in the Chief and get myself an audience plant," JJ said with a smile. "Reid may need you with the geographical profile."

"For what? It looks like he's just coloring a map."

"He _is_ just coloring a map. You know Santa Barbara better than all of us."

Juliet grinned. "True. I'll see what I can do."

JJ headed into the police office, passing Henry and Gus. "You two all right?"

"As far as I know, Agent Jareau."

"We're planning the press conference," JJ said. "Since your agency is still technically being resourced by the department on this case, would you mind joining us for it?"

"O-of course not," Gus said, tripping over his words slightly.

"Mr. Spencer." JJ held out her hand. "I'm Agent Jareau, the BAU's media liaison. I assure you, we're doing all we can to find Shawn."

"Good to hear."

"If you need us for anything, give me a call." JJ grinned slightly. "I can tell you aren't going to let police protection stop you from trying to find him."

Henry was slightly taken aback, but hid it. "'Course not. We may not get along but Shawn's all I've got left. If you'll excuse me, I need to find my protection." He headed towards the front desk. Gus shrugged.

"I just need to phone my boss and tell him I won't be in," he said simply, stepping away. "I'm sure he'll understand when I tell him the office might get shot up." JJ knocked on Vick's door.

"Chief. I need to talk to you about the press conference."

#

JJ stepped up to the podium erected on the front of the SBPD's steps, Vick, Juliet, Hotchner, Rossi, and Gus standing in on the steps behind her. Gus shifted his weight slightly. He didn't like being up here. Maybe he _should_ just leave the on screen stuff to Shawn.

He scanned the large crowd of media vans, cameras, and microphones. It was a good thing that agent seemed good at this. He would have been completely intimidated. Gus figured he was good at simple public speaking, but nothing like this.

"We've called this conference," JJ started, "To inform the public that, due to recent events, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit is taking over the recent case involving three murdered police officers. We will continue to work in conjunction with the Santa Barbara Police Department, but as of this press conference, Supervisory Special Agents Aaron Hotchner and Senior SSA David Rossi are taking point on the investigation." She let the expected and desired murmur at Rossi's name die down. In the back, Rossi resisted rolling his eyes. "As of this moment, we are looking for a domestic group of between seven and ten members who have now abducted three more people related to the police department. Anyone who may have information concerning last night's disappearances of SSA Derek Morgan, SBPD Head Detective Carlton Lassiter, and police consultant Shawn Spencer are asked to contact the FBI's tip line immediately.

"Also in conjunction with this case, we are asking everyone to be on the lookout for a dark colored cargo van seen fleeing the scene of Mr. Spencer's abduction, at approximately 10:35 P.M. last night. We are considering the owner of this van a suspect. The van is likely stolen or has stolen plates.

"The leader of this group is a highly intelligent, egotistical sociopath," JJ continued, releasing the bits of the profile she and the others had agreed on. "He is likely a businessman with a good deal of resources. We believe that these killings are his way of getting revenge on the SBPD. If anyone you know has spoken recently about wanting revenge on the department, we also ask you to contact us at the number on your screen." She paused for a second to allow for a break. "Are there any questions?"

"How can you be sure these cases are related?"

"The different aspects of the crime along with the learning curve shown by the individuals suggests that the crimes are related."

"What are the chances that they're still alive?"

"Very likely."

"What places the van at the scene?"

JJ thanked God that her audience plant was smart. "We have a witness in protective custody that places the van at the Psych office."

"I don't like this." Juliet shook her head. Vick nodded.

"It's risky, but I trust them."

"That's all for now." JJ stepped back towards the others and turned to reenter the headquarters.

"And now we're going to be bombarded by reports of a dark colored work van," Rossi said as they rejoined the others by the boards.

"Hopefully they'll dump the van now," Vick said. "Lifting evidence off of that may be the only way to pin these guys."

"Hotch," Prentiss said. "Garcia may have something."

#

"Go take the plates of the van and scrape of the VIN," Brossart ordered two of his lackeys as he turned off the radio. "Send Rob out to dump it somewhere but _still_ torch it." The one man left. "Now, down to business." Brossart turned back to the trio. "Do we have a volunteer?"

No one answered.

"All right then." Brossart turned to his accomplice. "Get the psychic."

"I'll do it," Lassiter and Morgan said in unison. Brossart laughed.

"We're all pretty damn eager now, aren't we?"

"I appreciate the concern, guys, but I can handle this," Shawn said, taken slightly aback that _Lassiter,_ of all people, had volunteered.

"Get him anyway. Lee has a bone to pick with him. Lee!" Brossart turned and barked into a walkie talkie.

The other guy, who was obviously _not_ Lee, headed towards them with a key. As he got close, Morgan did the first thing he thought of – he launched forward, jerking the other two, and slammed his head into the man's hip. As he collapsed, Brossart's gun suddenly appeared at Shawn's head with a click as the safety was released. They froze, Shawn closing his eyes to avoid crossing them to look down the barrel. _Definitely loaded._

"That was stupid, agent," Brossart said, voice low and even. "Do something stupid like that again and, as sad as it would be to lose one of you so early on, I swear I will redecorate this room with his brain." With that, he unlocked the cuffs binding Shawn to the other two and hauled him to his feet. He stumbled, still slightly dazed from where he'd been hit over the head earlier. The other man had gotten to his feet, and grabbed Shawn's arms as Brossart connected the free end of the cuffs that had been connecting Lassiter and Shawn to Morgan's arm. Shawn winced as the man holding him shoved him towards the sole piece of furniture in the room – a chair.

The door was still open.

Morgan and Lassiter spotted it at the same time.

It was desperate, but . . .

"Shawn!"

"Spencer!"

Shawn got the message, wrenched out of his captor's hands, and flew through the door.

He was in some sort of subterranean hallway. Concrete. The sole lighting consisted of cheap dangly lights with no shade over the open bulb. The light was brighter from one end of the hallway, and Shawn decided to take that as a sign of civilization. He didn't want to wonder where his captor's other accomplices were, as he hadn't seen any of them since he'd been abducted.

_This is stupid, even for _you_, Shawn!_ A voice that sounded creepily like Gus' yelled in his head. He could hear Brossart's dimwitted companion running down the hall after him – which meant that Brossart himself was left alone with the others . . .

"On three, Lassiter . . ." Morgan muttered. The duo braced themselves against each other, Lassiter wincing as his arm stretched. "One . . . two . . . three!"

They struggled quietly to their feet while Brossart stared at the door, arms crossed and foot tapping. Lassiter glanced back at Morgan.

"Rush him?"

Morgan gave a short nod and took a slow step towards Brossart. Lassiter followed suit, eyes not wavering from the target. His head was spinning – the combined weight of himself and Morgan might do some damage, but in the end, Brossart had a gun, and when it came to violence a gun definitely trumped a double tackle.

Brossart seemed to sense them coming. As he started to turn Lassiter half-swore. "Morgan –"

Morgan had stopped, starting to . . . _just go for it_ . . .

Brossart took aim, and fired.

#

Running was difficult, but this was actual _survival_. Luckily, Shawn was sure Brossart's friend didn't have a gun on him.

He dodged around a corner and slid to a stop, straightening up with a grin.

"You must be Lee," he said, addressing the skinny guy with brown emo hair in front of him while slowly backing up. "I'm sorry; I think I took a left back in Albuquerque, so I'll just be go—uf!"

Lee punched him in the stomach, throwing Shawn sufficiently off balance and sending him to the ground. Coughing, he looked up to find Brossart's friend standing over him.

"Did he seriously try to run, Allan?" Lee asked.

"Yeah. Stuart's waiting for us."

They grabbed Shawn's arms and drug him backwards down the hall, hardly trying to pull him off the ground first. As they started back, Shawn struggling, there was a loud gunshot.

"What in hell?"

"The others must have made a move on Stuart."

"Can't say I think he's really their type," Shawn quipped. They picked up their pace, and he winced as it made his head pound harder. After a sharp turn and a hard crack on the concrete floor, he briefly lost consciousness again.

"--was stupid," Brossart was saying as he regained consciousness. "I fully expected more cooperation, or at least intelligence, from all of you. Get him in the chair." Lee and the beefy guy named Allan lifted him up and he found himself upright in the chair. "Hands on the arms, as usual. When you're done, Allan, get a tourniquet on Agent Morgan's leg."

They undid his cuffs, making sure to keep his arms pinned, and tied him down to the arms of the chair. With a quick glance at the others, he saw what Brossart had meant. Morgan was leaning back against Lassiter, one leg crossed over his other and teeth clenched. Blood was pooled on the ground under his leg, and Lassiter was trying desperately to figure out a way to stop the bleeding without the use of hands.

"So why're you two helping this guy avenge his not-dead sister?" Shawn asked, redirecting his attention to the two tying him down. "You related?" Shawn jerked his head towards Brossart. Allan stopped tying his knot.

"Did you hear him, Lee?"

"Yeah, I did, Allan. Keep tying."

"How'd he know Stuart's Jody's brother?"

"I'm _psychic_, remember?" Shawn said, leaning his head back against the chair. It earned a strike from Lee.

"Shut up." Lee pointed a finger at Allan. "You are _not_ going to listen to anything this crackpot charlatan says, do I make myself clear?"

"But Lee—"

"Just finish tying him in the chair and we can get this over with."

"You don't like torturing the hell out of people?" Shawn asked.

"Why don't you tell _me_, psychic? 'Cause I'll enjoy beating the shit out of you."

"It's why you can't fight plants, all right? They always win. They're sneaky, vicious little monsters in clay pots, and . . . seriously? The one that attacked you _always_ tripped me on my way into the –" Shawn earned an elbow to his stomach this time, knocking the wind out of him again.

"Maybe that'll shut him up."

"Don't count on it," Shawn heard Lassiter mutter from their corner, indicating that he was still paying attention.

Once he was firmly secured on the chair, Lee stepped back and opened the briefcase he'd brought with him. Shawn swallowed as he pulled out a baton about two feet long.

"Please tell me that I don't know what that is?" Lassiter asked.

Morgan glanced up and quickly looked away. "It's a shock baton. But it's better than jumper cables."

They looked back over as Shawn doubled over in the chair after making another smart-ass comment. Lee stalked around it, as if trying to figure out the best place to start.

"This is gonna suck, isn't it?" Shawn finally said, unnerved by the silence. He fidgeted in the chair, eyes glued to the baton. "Like when the grocery store doesn't have pineapple and you have to drive thirty-five minutes to the next grocery store, only to find out that _they _don't either, and then that there's a pineapple-itis epidemic . . ."

"Brossart, just, let him go, and maybe we can talk about this," Lassiter yelled over at their captor, more out of instinct than anything else.

"It's not going to work, Lassiter," Morgan hissed, voice hoarse. "Trying to bargain is going to make it worse, remember?"

"I feel like I'm in a slasher movie," Shawn said, closing his eyes and pressing himself back against the chair. "Only, it's a really bad one. Like a zombie movie . . . or _Friday the 13__th__ Is Every Day of the Week_ . . . didn't you hear about it? It's the newest remak--"


	11. Chapter 10: Protecting the Spencers

**Chapter 10: The Easiest Police Protection Ever, or, Why Shawn Hates Ben Franklin**

McNabb pulled in behind Henry's truck, making sure to park his cruiser in plain view. After nearly having his head bit off by the incredibly angry ex-cop, McNabb hadn't been looking forward to spending any more time with him. But when Chief Vick had come out and told him that he was being assigned to guard Henry Spencer, and explained the situation to him, he'd realized that he may have calmed down. He would have much preferred to be out looking for the van, but this might be less dangerous. At the least, he'd have another cop, retired or not, to back him up. That, and maybe trying to solve this case would give Henry something to stay occupied, so all McNabb had to do was make sure he didn't run off.

He knocked at the door, not wanting to startle the already jumpy man. Henry appeared behind the screen, oven mitt on one hand and apron covering his Hawaiian-patterned shirt.

"You're my protection?"

"Yes, sir." McNabb nodded.

"McNabb? Did I see you this morning?"

"You verbally assaulted me, sir."

"Oh." He paused. "Did Vick give you any instructions?"

"Well, you have me, and three other cops posted outside your house. There may or may not be anyone undercover around here. I can either sit in my cruiser in your driveway, or . . ."

"You had lunch yet?"

"No sir."

"You're no good out there right now then. I was just making lunch anyway. Come on."

McNabb looked around, shrugged, and stepped in.

#

A shrill ring broke through a half-yelp in the otherwise silent basement.

"Lee. Take a break."

There was a slight sigh of relief from Lassiter as Lee took a step away from the bloody and fairly incoherent consultant. No amount of attempting on the parts of Lassiter or Morgan to have either of them substituted for him had worked, and Morgan had argued only slightly less because of pain. Brossart answered his phone.

"Rob?"

_Haven't dumped the van yet. But we may have found the witness. _

"Who is it?"

_Apparently it's Henry Spencer._

Brossart nearly dropped the phone. "You're kidding."

_No sir. He's got two cops stationed outside his house, and it looks like another is inside with him right now. It's either that or he's holding a police social._

"Excellent. Dump the van, and then continue watching him. We'll take him out like the rest of them." Brossart closed the phone. "Psychic."

"What?" Shawn tried to snap, passing on the cynicism.

"You know that a witness saw my van at your office?" A mumbled "sure" came back. Brossart paused for dramatic effect. "A retired police sergeant? A . . . Mr. Henry Spencer?"

Shawn was suddenly at full alert, as were the other two. Ignoring his injuries, he straightened up to glare at Brossart. "Stay 'way from him, you bastard."

Lee dug the baton into his side, making Shawn yelp and collapse back against the chair.

"You see, psychic, I don't think we can do that. He can put the van at the scene. Someone can trace it to us. Not only that, he was _instrumental _in Jody's arrest . . . no, we're going to take care of him." Brossart laughed. "Maybe we'll tape it for you, so you can see it yourself."

"Stay 'way from 'im," Shawn repeated, weaker this time.

"If you really think they aren't looking for you now," Lassiter said. "Just wait until you kill off a retired cop. They'll be on your ass so fast you'd think you had a neon sign on your head."

"I don't think so, detective." Brossart turned back to Lee. "Carry on."

"Don't y'think that's enough?" Shawn asked, edging away from the baton's descent. "'fter all, I think cows would accept me into a h-herd by now—"

The baton dug in again.

#

"What'd Stuart say?"

Rob, a broad-shouldered bodybuilder type, hung up the phone and looked over at his companion.

"We're getting rid of the van, Darryl." They started back towards the lot where they'd left their two vehicles. "Then, we're coming back here to watch those cops, and maybe doing a hit on Spencer in there."

Darryl rubbed his hands together. "Haven't done a hit for a while. Especially not on a cop."

"We don't move until Stuart says to. Now, let's get rid of this van."

Rob climbed up behind the wheel as Darryl got into a smaller sedan. They drove outside of the city limits, up into the hills, and finally got out at a small clearing off an access road. Once there, Darryl unscrewed the license plates while Rob doused the inside of the van with gasoline. Once Darryl was back in the car, Rob lit a lighter and tossed it into the back of the van, sending it up in a fireball. He joined Darryl and they sped out before they could be caught at the scene.

"Now what?"

"We need to stake out Spencer's house."

"I say we grab food on the way."

"It's not even dinner time yet."

"It could be."

"Where we going then?"

"Jerk chicken?"

"Hell yes."

#

"Gus."

Gus looked up from his laptop as Juliet walked towards him. He saved the presentation he'd been working on and closed it. "Juliet?"

"I'm not technically supposed to do this," she said, leaning on her desk. "But I'm feeling pretty useless here."

"You, at least, have a gun and legal authority," Gus said, then hastily realized that wasn't the best thing to say. "I didn't mean that the . . ."

"It's ok." Juliet sighed. "Either way, Agent Hotchner said that the van may have been dumped by now. I need to get out of here. You feel like taking a ride?"

"If it means doing something." Gus got to his feet. "You driving?"

"I have the sirens," Juliet said with a slight smile, walking towards the parking lot.

Once they were both secure in a department sedan, Juliet pulled carefully out of the parking lot. "How's your presentation coming?"

"It's getting along. It's on a new line of protein inhibitors, for—"

"Gus, you know I wouldn't understand anything you were about to say."

Gus started laughing, and Juliet glanced at him before returning her eyes to the road. "I'm sorry, it's just . . . that's something like what . . ." He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought. "Jules."

She jumped as Gus used her nickname. "Yeah?"

"Do you think we'll find them?"

Juliet paused. "I think so."

Gus stared out the window. "He told me. I was leaving the office, and he told me to be careful. He said that we were connected with the department and in danger. And he brought up the damned key-in-a-rock on my landing. And then, I leave the office, and he's taken right out of there. You know what that means?"

Juliet stayed silent.

"It means they were _watching_ us. They were waiting for me to leave. That means that he _was_ their target."

"There's nothing you could have done."

"I know." Gus sighed. "But I wish there was something I could have done." Juliet nodded. "Where are we headed, anyway?"

"I thought we could check out some of the service roads." Juliet was happy to be away from Gus' frustration. "If you were going to dump a van, you'd figure it'd be best to put it on a service road."

"Yeah." There was another mile or so of silence. "Why did you grab me, and not another detective?"

Juliet sighed. "I needed to feel useful, and you looked about the same."

Gus shrugged. "True. My report's done, but that means I have nothing else to do."

Juliet nodded. "I know they're trying to make me useful, but I just feel like I'm stepping on their toes."

"You helped with the geographical profile thing though, right?"

"I told Agent Reid what the different neighborhoods were like, but he took off on some math problems and I lost him."

"I could see that."

"And Jareau is trying to give me as much to do as possible, but there's just so much specialized stuff they're down to now that there isn't much I can do." Gus could sense the frustration in her voice. "And meanwhile, Carlton and Shawn are out there having God knows what happening to them, and the most I can do is sit around at hope that they're going to need me."

_Detective O'Hara, do you read?_

Juliet picked up the handset for the scanner. "This is O'Hara."

_10-20?_

"I'm getting close to the National Forest. I was heading out to search access roads."

_Fire-rescue is on their way to an 11-24 with a potential 451, called in by a ranger on Service 48. _

"10-4. On my way." She clipped it back to the dash and flicked on the lights and siren.

"Wait, where're we going?"

"Abandoned vehicle. Potential arson. It may be them." Juliet dodged around a slow-moving station wagon. "We're meeting the fire department."

They sped up the road and turned onto a well-used dirt access road. As soon as they turned on, they could see a red glow through the trees.

"That must be where we're going?"

"I think so." She stopped behind a large fire truck. "Gus, do me a favor. Stay here until I say otherwise."

"Hell no. If they're still here . . ."

"Stay out of the way then."

"I'm not Shawn!" he yelled after her, pushing himself next to one of the engines and waiting for an all-clear. It came when Juliet reappeared, jogging back to the car. "What's going on?"

She reached for the handset through the door. "It's a dark colored cargo van." Gus felt his heart lodge in his throat as Juliet barked into the handset. "This is O'Hara, 10-27, requesting forensics and FBI at Service Road 48. Vehicle matches description of one used in abductions."

#

The black SUV pulled up behind Vick's car at the clearing. The fire had been relatively easy to put out, and forensics had found a small amount of blood in the back. The VIN on the dash had been scratched off, and the plates were missing, but they'd located a second VIN on the side of the door, and figured the one inside the hood was probably still there.

"What do we have?" Vick asked the head of the team, scrutinizing the nearly gutted car. Rossi and Prentiss joined her.

"The flames really only destroyed the very back, by the doors. They decided to deposit it on a well-used service road so a passing ranger found it burning and called the fire department," he explained. "We've found some blood right behind the seats in the front. There's probably legible prints in the front, as they would have expected the fire to destroy them and didn't wipe them down."

"What's the make?"

"1997 Chevy Astro cargo van. Automatic, all wheel drive, V6 engine. Side doors on the right side, and back doors."

"It's probably our guys," Rossi said.

"How can you be sure?"

"Old work van. Dark colored. Left gutted in a remote location. Sounds a lot like destroying evidence to me," Prentiss said for him.

"Find out blood types. We may be able to match the blood type, at least, to one of our victims," Rossi said. "The smoke may have degraded it too much for DNA, and we don't have that type of time."

"We can't field test for that, but we can do it back in the lab."

"There's no field test yet?" Rossi asked. "There's field tests for everything nowadays."

"Not for this. Sorry sir." The forensics head hurried back to the scene.

"We're going to need that ASAP," Vick said. "It may be the only thing tying the van to our missing guys." She turned back to the two agents. "You sure this is them?"

Rossi shrugged. "Not sure who else would be burning a dark colored work van."

"The 'Burning Dark Colored Cargo Vans Hobbyist Association'?" Gus asked. They looked at him. "We were all thinking it – Shawn just wasn't here to say it."

#

"Yep. Got it." Reid hung up on Rossi and dialed a familiar number.

_Office of Internet Vengeance, who can I get ya for?_

"Hey, Garcia."

_Hey, doc. How is everything out there? Any sign of them yet?_

"Not yet."

_Damn it. _It didn't sound like Garcia to curse, but Reid let it slide. _How're you holding up?_

"Fine. What about you?"

_Kevin's helping, but . . . I don't know. I just don't want to get used to getting calls from the rest of you guys – no offense. I know this isn't a social call, though. Whatcha need?_

"I need you to run a VIN for me."

_Ooh! You found the van!_ There was clicking on the other end. _What is it?_

"1GNEL19W6VB2205387."

_And the winner is . . . it's part of a work fleet at Allam Chevrolet. Oh. Wait, Reid. It was reported stolen about a month ago._

Reid groaned. "Are you sure?"

_Very much so._

"Thanks, Garcia."

_I really wish criminals weren't smart sometimes._

"I know." Reid hung up and frowned as Rossi, Prentiss, and Vick walked back in.

"The van was stolen."

"_What_?" Rossi asked.

"It was stolen. The van. The one you just found. From Allam Chevrolet. About a month ago."

"O'Hara, go get security footage for the lot. Take someone with you." Vick rubbed her forehead. Juliet hurried out, grabbing another detective on her way.

"There's no registration beforehand?" Hotchner asked. Prentiss was still looking at Reid like her world had collapsed.

"It was part of the work fleet at the dealership." Reid put his head in his hands.

"Back to square one," Rossi said lightly. "What would we do if this wasn't Morgan?"

"Victimology?" Reid said quietly.

"Good start. Why not Reid?" Rossi continued. His head jerked up. "Reid's the easiest one of us to subdue. Sorry, Reid."

"No, it's a fair call."

"Why go after a harder target?" Hotchner said.

"Shawn wasn't out of shape either," Prentiss said. "Nor was Detective Lassiter."

"But he'd been going after cops anyway," Vick stuck in. "Maybe Agent Reid wouldn't have been enough of a challenge."

There was silence. Gus, sitting at Juliet's desk, finally cut in. "Why Shawn, though? He's not even a cop."

"Let's start there." Rossi walked over to one of the boards and wrote the statement in big letters. _Why Spencer?_ "He isn't a cop. It's off profile."

"Could it have been any of the recent cases you worked on?" Prentiss directed the question to Gus.

"We haven't gotten any threatening messages recently, no. And our cases haven't been very high profile recently. We've been laying low since Yang."

"So if it isn't cases . . ."

"They must have realized that, if they kept Spencer here it would only be a matter of time before they were caught." Rossi wrote _Risk?_ underneath the question.

"He's a big name in Santa Barbara, so it might be a way to get media attention," Reid said.

"But they haven't sent us demands, which would rule out trying to get a message out," Hotchner said. "Unless he's contacted the media and no one has told us."

"I doubt it," Vick said. "The media stations have been under a strict warning to send anything suspicious straight here."

"Then what?"

They all stared at the board.

"Henry."

They all turned to look at Vick.

"What about him?" Gus asked.

"When Henry was a detective, most of our high profile cases ended up being taken by him. If anything, the _name_ may be one of the reasons he was taken."

"So should we try to separate these out by those that were cases where the point was Mr. Spencer?" Prentiss asked, motioning at the files.

"It may be an idea. He has enough enemies."

"So this entire thing was to get back at him?" Gus asked.

Hotchner shook his head. "I seriously doubt it. It's more likely that it was convenient."

"Take out another part of the police department, and take out personal revenge on the man who took someone from you at the same time," Rossi muttered to himself, writing _Name_ on the board.

"Prentiss. Reid. Go through the files and look for which ones Henry Spencer was point on," Hotchner said. "Chief, you may want to call Mr. Spencer and warn him about this."

"I'll do it, Chief," Gus volunteered, opening his phone and walking away.

"What else can we do?" Vick asked.

"I'll check with the tip line," JJ said, walking towards where it was set up.

"Dave, we'll go through the security footage with them when it gets here. We may be able to see something," Hotchner said, turning back to the boards.

"I don't like this, Aaron," Rossi muttered. Hotchner glanced over at him.

"I don't either."

#

Shawn had never been more happy to be handcuffed. Except for . . . nevermind.

Being handcuffed (right now, at least) meant that Lee was done playing with the cattle prod-like thing and repeatedly finding new places to sink a fist into someone. Shawn was fairly certain that Lee had _invented_ places to hit him – really, who kicks someone in the shins outside of high school girl fights (and Shawn himself, of course, but that's a different story altogether).

He had decided to see what would happen if he "went boneless," as Gus liked to call it, while being treated like a slow-moving bovine. It resulted with a few admonishments from Brossart to Lee, Brossart checking his pulse, and then being re-cuffed to his two companions. Once they'd left, Shawn leaned fully back against Lassiter, who jumped.

"Spencer!"

"Dude," Shawn said hoarsely. "Was I that convincing?"

"You had to keep running your mouth, Spencer."

"They're goin' after my dad, Lassie," Shawn defended. "My _dad_. All I can do is sit h-here and figure he's got no idea."

"Shawn." Morgan's strained voice cut through. "You did fine. Your dad's smart. How're you feeling?"

"Like I jus' fell outta a cow chute." _I really want water . . . _

Morgan chuckled slightly. "Apart from that."

"Thirsty." His voice cracked in the middle of the word. _That's what screaming in pain will do for you_, he thought. _Damn it. I _was _screaming. Probably like a little girl too. I always scream like that. Where are you guys?_ Shawn licked his lips. "Like I just got run over bya truck. Serious'y, who woulda thought y'could hit some'n' in that many places?"

"At least you're probably done for now. Get some sleep."

"Hm?"

"We're going to need you as awake as possible if we can get out of here," Morgan said. "Even though we saw how well that worked for us . . . either way. Get some sleep."

"Mmkay." It didn't help that he was already drifting off, either to sleep or unconsciousness. Either was welcome.

"God," Lassiter muttered when it appeared that Shawn was out.

"It's only going to get harder."

"Don't tell me you don't care about this, Morgan."

"Lassiter, you don't even want to know what I've seen happen to my team. Hell,_ I _was nearly blown up in an ambulance the same _day_ that Hotch was nearly blown up in an SUV."

There was a long period of silence. "Can you see him?"

"Spencer?"

"Yeah."

Morgan craned his head around, wincing as it pulled on his leg. "Yeah."

"How does he look?"

Morgan quickly scanned the sleeping psychic. "Looks like Lee got him in the nose at some point, I don't think it's broken, though."

"Anything else?"

"Apart from the electrical shocks and possible burns? He may have a broken rib or two, but either way it's not enough to cause a chest flail, so he isn't in dire need of a doctor. I'm not sure about the effects of electrical shock on an existing concussion, though."

"What about you?"

"I'll live."

There was another period of silence.

"Who do you think is next?"

Morgan tried not to laugh. "With this guy as a loose cannon? God only knows."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"I'll see if I can figure out a way get up there. That way there's at least you to maybe leave for help."

Lassiter laughed this time. "We saw how well that worked the last time."

Morgan shrugged. "It's still worth a shot."

"Either way, we need to make sure they're done with Spencer."

Morgan nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately his injuries . . ."

"Aren't consistent with the bodies left in the field." Lassiter sighed. "Maybe there's an initial and then 'ding-ding-ding you've reached the second level' torture?"

"Lassiter, I don't think I ever expected to hear you say that."

The door opened again, and Morgan and Lassiter looked over at it. Brossart stood framed in it with another two accomplices – neither of them Lee – and they stepped in.

"So . . . " Brossart looked between the two remaining conscious captives, rubbing his hands together delightedly. "Let's get started again."

#

"I just don't see anything on this tape that's going to help us," Juliet said, tired of watching the screen. Rossi shook his head and rewound it again.

"There has to be . . ."

"Wait! Agent Rossi, right there!" He paused it quickly and they looked where Vick was pointing.

In the corner of the picture they could see a sliver of a head in a ski mask.

"We need a copy of this," Hotchner demanded. "That, right there. We need to get that to Garcia to run a facial imaging program on it. There may be enough to narrow our suspect pool."

"O'Hara," Vick said, motioning to the disk. "Can you get this to Agent Reid?"

"Absolutely." She promptly popped the disk out and left.

"This may be our break," Hotchner said, following her.

"I sure hope so," Vick muttered as they hurried back towards the boards. Reid was already on the webcam with Garcia, who was just receiving the video. Everyone grouped around, waiting for _anything_.

"This doesn't work in five seconds, you know," she said with a quick glance at the webcam.

"We have very little to do," Prentiss said.

"Apart from work your mystical powers and find Morgan and the others. . ." Garcia hit a few more buttons. "All right. Running the bit of the face we have through VICAP and the local database with the names we have, we'll see if we get a hit."

They continued to stare at her through the webcam.

"All right, guys, this is getting kinda creepy."

They backed off slightly, re-examining the boards for anything they may have missed. Finally Garcia's voice called them back.

"Uploading a list of your potential creepers right now."

"Excellent. Thanks, Garcia." Hotchner pulled out his palm to look at the list. "Chief, can you get someone to pull these files?"

"One second. Dobson!" She hurried off towards the cop.

"Is anyone else starving?" Prentiss asked, glancing at her watch. It was nearly 7.

"We can run down somewhere again," Gus said, sitting back down at the table. "Henry offered to bring us food. He's apparently feeding McNabb as we speak."

"I'll go." JJ got up. "Who else wants to come along?"

"I need to get out of here," Reid said. They headed out of the department toward the SUVs.

"Mr. Guster!" He turned to look at the Chief. "How's Mr. Spencer holding up?"

"Fine. He's feeding McNabb about now. Something about stress cooking. That's where Reid and Agent Jareau are headed now. He offered us dinner."

"Oh." Vick grinned at them. "That sounds like Henry."

"Do we have anything else?"

"Just these. I pulled them myself." Vick handed them the files.

They sat and poured over them for nearly a half hour when the scanner crackled to life once more.

_Shots fired, Spencer residence. Officer requesting backup!_

It was McNabb.

Hotchner, Rossi, and Prentiss were out the door before Vick and Juliet had time to move, but they hurried out after them. Gus grabbed the keys to the Echo and followed them.

Hopefully the shots had been _from_ Henry or McNabb or one of the agents, and not towards them.

#

JJ and Reid pulled up to the quaint house he'd visited the day before and parked on the driveway behind a police cruiser. The lights were on inside.

"Looks like he's waiting for us," Reid said, jumping out of the SUV. JJ followed him, and they walked to the door. JJ knocked.

"Reid. Promise me, no splitting up."

He grinned. "None at all."

Henry came to the door with an oven mitt and a cream and yellow apron covering his shirt. "Hey, Agent Reid. Did you come to pick up food?"

"We heard you were stress cooking," he answered as Henry opened the door.

"Come on in," Henry said. "McNabb's just at the table. Everything's been quiet so far."

"That's good." JJ scanned the fishing memorabilia on the walls. "Like fishing?"

"Usually go out every morning!" he yelled from the kitchen. "Didn't today, obviously. How much you need?"

"I think we're getting food for our team, O'Hara, Mr. Guster, and the Chief," Reid answered. "So eight people?"

"Coming right up."

JJ and Reid simultaneously glanced out the back door.

"Reid."

"I saw." He drew his gun. JJ grabbed his arm.

"No splitting up."

"I wasn't going to. Head out the front."

"_That's_ splitting up," JJ said.

"I'll be on the porch. Promise."

"Mr. Spencer. Officer McNabb. Stay in the kitchen please," JJ said. She glanced at Reid, who pointed at the door. They headed to either end of the house.

"Someone out there?" Henry yelled out.

"Stay in there," Reid yelled back, giving JJ a nod. They busted out through the doors, and Reid immediately trained his gun on the suspect. "FBI! Stop where you are!"

The black clothed man sprinted down the drive as the two cops staking out Henry's house sprinted to the yard after him. Reid fired. The man stumbled, clutching his arm, and kept running down the beach as Reid and the two cops went after him. Another figure appeared and stopped him – one of the undercovers Hotchner had managed to secure – and from a distance it appeared he was being cuffed. Satisfied, Reid ran back to the house as another shot was fired, and as he burst through the door he could hear McNabb yelling for backup into his scanner.

"What happened?" McNabb yelled towards Reid.

"Intruder in the yard, what—" Reid hurried into the kitchen in time to see Henry pull a bleeding man off the floor and slam him into the cabinets. JJ was putting away her gun, as was McNabb.

"Where the hell is my son?" Henry demanded, shaking him.

"Mr. Spencer!" JJ said, trying to pull him away from the man. "Mr. Spencer, let go of the suspect."

In response, he shook him again. "Where the hell is he? I know you have him, now where the hell is he?"

"Mr. Spencer, trust me. Once Hotch and the Chief get a hold of him, he'll tell you anything you _want_," JJ said.

"Hell, if I got a hold of him," Reid muttered. "Mr. Spencer, you need to let him down."

Henry let him drop, making the man collapse on his wounded leg. Reid pulled him back up and grabbed McNabb's handcuffs. "You have the right to remain silent," Reid said, cuffing him and then pushing him into one of the chairs. "Anything you say can and – I swear – _will_ be used against you in a court of law. You can request a lawyer and if you cannot afford one, one will be provided. Understood?" The man nodded mutely. "I said _understood_?" Reid hit the table, making them all jump.

"Yeah, yeah!"

The cops and the undercover hauled in the other man, bleeding from his arm, and dumped him into one of the other chairs.

"You call for backup?" One of the cops asked. McNabb nodded.

"I'll put in a call for an ambulance," the other said, walking away.

"That was a good shot, Agent Reid."

Reid shrugged. "I was aiming for one of his legs."

JJ hid a grin as she went to intercept the approaching sirens.

"We heard shots fired, what happened?" Juliet asked, worriedly looking between the house and the agent in front of her as she and Vick ran up the path.

"We have it under control," JJ said. "There were some guys sneaking around the house. Reid went after one and McNabb shot the other in Mr. Spencer's kitchen. They're in custody. Hotch, I think Reid might be ready to kill this guy. I know Mr. Spencer is."

Hotchner and Rossi stepped around her into the house.

"Did Reid hit the other guy?" Prentiss asked.

"In the arm." They entered the house. "One of the undercover agents took him down along the beach. They're both in the kitchen."

They joined the others, all glaring at the two cuffed men in front of them.

"I'm going to give you all a shot to make this right," Vick said, standing in front of them with her arms crossed. "Give me a name. Preferably a street. Where you and your friends have some hostages. Or . . ." She leaned forward threateningly as Gus hurried in after them. "I will put you in a holding cell with a couple of gang men we brought in earlier today, and leave you there for a few hours after I let them know that you're a group of cop killers."

The man McNabb had shot went pale. The other one sneered.

"You think gangbangers scare us?"

"I think that what 'gangbangers' do to people like you _should_ scare you." Vick paused. "Maybe I'll just lock you in a room with some cops and a couple of these agents, and see what happens."

"Only if I'm in there," Henry cut in.

"And Mr. Spencer."

The ambulances pulled up outside.

"You know, Aaron, I'm feeling good about this," Rossi said. "I think I'll ride in with one of our buddies here."

"Chief, I'll take in the other," Juliet volunteered immediately. Vick nodded.

"Go ahead. We'll get the interrogation rooms ready." Vick stepped past a stretcher. "Let's give them some space to work."

Prentiss and JJ grudgingly drug Reid out, followed by Gus. Rossi grinned at the glaring, more talkative beefy attacker as he was handcuffed to a stretcher and the paramedics began pulling him out. Rossi followed him past the other agents. As they watched, he animatedly began talking to his arrestee. "Good evening. I'm SSA David Rossi, and I'll be traveling to the hospital with you today . . ."

"He's going to want to talk when he gets to the station," Hotchner said as he exited after Juliet and the second stretcher. JJ nodded.

"I think I would too."

Gus sighed and looked over at Vick. "Do you think they know where they are?"

Vick nodded. "It looks like our police protection scheme played them directly into our hands." She looked up at Hotchner, still standing on the deck. "It worked out better than I thought it would, at least."

Hotchner raised his eyebrows. "I thought it would take a little more time for them to at least act on it."

"That's good for us," Reid said. "I was really close on the geographic profile, and with the attack on Mr. Spencer I can re-triangulate and see what more information there is on the location of their home base, which should be where they're holding Morgan, Detective Lassiter, and Shawn. And –"

"Reid . . ." Prentiss held up her hand. "It's us."

"Sorry."

"Henry." Vick directed her attention to the man now joining them outside. "While we may have found these two, I want you to keep your police protection until we have the others in custody."

Henry grimaced but nodded. "Understood."

"Let's get back to the station and set Agent Reid back down with his map, then," Vick said, hurrying back to her car. "McNabb, I'll send your back up shortly so you can get home."

"Chief, I'd rather stay out here and do something," he said, then winced visibly as she turned around. "But if you think it's best . . ."

"If you want to help us out on any upcoming raid it would be best for you to get some sleep."

"Okay." McNabb nodded.

"Hey!" Henry yelled after the retreating agents. "You still want your food?"


	12. Chapter 11: Reid, 1 Shooter, 0

Wow, I'm updating pretty fast, aren't I? Tee hee hee.

Story is, my housemate and I are cramming for a test right now and it is effing insane. As it happens to be my Sociology of Deviance test, I thought it would be appropriate to post a chapter before I become sad for failing.

the-vampire-act: Pride yourself for being a rabid fan.

kira66: Thanks!

Everyone else: Stop lurking and review. Pwease?

Disclaimer: As usual, I only own Season 1 of Psych and Seasons 1-3 of Criminal Minds on DVD only. Sadly.

**Chapter 11: Reid, 1. Shooter, 0.**

Both Reid and Garcia, despite the fact that the clock was nearing ten, had refused to move until a geographic profile was finished. When they were finally finished, Reid pinned his map onto the board and called everyone over. Rossi and Juliet were not yet back from the hospital, but the doctors had agreed that the wounds were shallow and that the two men could be released quickly into police custody. Rossi had just called Hotchner and let him know that they were leaving the hospital and on their way to the station.

"All right," Reid said, addressing the group. "Garcia and I worked this out. The Psych office is here, our hotel here, and Detective Lassiter's house is here." Reid pointed to each on in turn. "Now, drawing lines between the abduction sites, you see they form a rough triangle. Also along similar lines are the abduction sites of the two police officers, or at least where their squad cars were found. Here is the most recent dump site, the previous dump site, and the site where the gang members were found." Reid outlined them. "And here is Mr. Spencer's house. If you'll notice, there's this huge gap in the center of the sites where nothing has been reported. That's because this is the group's 'comfort zone.'" He looked back at them. "Garcia is currently running the last names we have against people and businesses in this area." Reid circled it again in red marker. "_This_ is probably where they're being held."

"That's a warehouse district," Vick said. "It's a lot of square feet to cover."

"Garcia's good." Hotchner looked vainly down at his handheld for anything from the analyst. "She'll find them."

There was a brief bit of silence from them as they scanned the map.

"Is your analyst cross referencing names and crimes in that area?" Vick suddenly asked, pointing at one particular part of Reid's analysis.

"She should be," JJ asked.

"You remember something?" Prentiss cut JJ off hurriedly.

"There was one particular case," Vick said. "I . . . Henry worked it. Drug dealers . . . it ended up that the girlfriend of our suspect was actually the ringleader of the cartel."

"Any particular reason you're remembering this?" Reid asked.

"I . . . her brother was incredibly pissed after the verdict came back." Vick shook her head. "I wish I could remember the name. She claimed she had no involvement but we'd tied her prints to the drugs."

"When would this have been?"

Vick paused. "Maybe eleven years ago."

"Do you have a name?" JJ asked.

"God . . ." Vick trailed off. "Started with a B. Her name had a J . . . Jody, I – yes, Jody Brossart!"

Reid was already on his phone.

_Information superhighway is open._

"Garcia. We need anything you can get on Jody Brossart."

_Immediately, my dear genius. Let's see . . . arrested as part of a drug cartel . . . clients and fingerprint evidence marked her as the ringleader . . . not to mention that one of her dealers turned state's witness. . . _ there was a series of clicking in the background. _Been in jail on racketeering and several drug charges since 1998._

"I need family members."

_It'll take me a few. I'll get back to you very shortly._

"She's on it." Reid said as they caught sight of Rossi and Juliet escorting their two shooters towards the interrogation rooms. The duo joined them after a few minutes.

"They're set," Juliet said.

"Any tricks you think will work, Agent?" Vick directed her question to Hotchner.

"Playing them against one another would be a good start, so we need to wait a few minutes," Rossi interjected.

"We need boxes with the name Brossart on the side," Hotchner said. "Just Brossart, since we don't have a first name yet. At this point there should be at least one federal agent and one detective in each room when we begin interrogating." He scanned his agents. "Detective O'Hara, Chief Vick, I assume you want in on the interrogations." There were nods in agreement. "Rossi?"

"I think you should let Reid take the guy he shot." Rossi nodded towards him as his jaw nearly hit the floor. "I may or may not have set him up perfectly on the way to the hospital by describing him as able to rip people apart when angry."

Prentiss and JJ both hid a laugh as Reid tried to make his jaw work again.

"You up for it?" Hotchner asked.

"Uh. Yeah." Reid regained control of his mouth. "Okay."

"Chief?"

"I'll pair up with him." She nodded.

"I'll take the other one with Detective O'Hara, then." He turned to Prentiss, Rossi, and JJ. "You will all be ready to call Garcia immediately should they tell us anything."

"Shall we?" Vick started towards the interrogation rooms with the agents in tow. Juliet caught a glimpse of Gus staring blankly at his laptop screen at her desk and walked over.

"We're going into interrogation now, if you want to join us."

He jumped and looked up at her. "The guys from Henry's house?"

"Their interrogations will be going on at the same time. We could use an extra set of eyes in the observation room."

Gus nodded and stood, and they headed down the hall.

#

Hotchner opened the door for Juliet and followed her into the interrogation room. A dark haired, ruggedly built man scowled at them as Juliet set down the box she was carrying and sat down in the chair.

"Robert Newcomb, age 30," Juliet said. "This is a pretty impressive rap sheet. Nice to know we can add several counts of first degree murder to it. And a few abductions."

"We've got Darryl in the other room," Hotchner said, taking a spot in the room behind Juliet. "He's selling you out. But we really don't care about you." Hotchner spun the box around so that the name _Brossart_ was clearly visible. "We know you're just a pawn."

Newcomb scowled again. "What's this gotta do with me? I've never seen that name before."

"Well," Juliet said, trying not to strangle the man in front of her. "Have you seen any of these three men before?" She set down the pictures from the first slayings, receiving a negative headshake. "What about these?" The first batch of security guards received another headshake. "And them?" The last group before Morgan, Lassiter, and Shawn had disappeared received yet another headshake. Juliet pushed the box aside to make more room, and slammed down a picture of Lassiter. "Ever seen him before?"

"Maybe on TV," Newcomb answered offhandedly.

"What about him?" Juliet slammed down a picture of Shawn.

"Nope."

Hotchner dropped a picture of Morgan down on the table. "Him?"

"No."

"That's funny," Hotchner said, leaning on the table. "Because he's one of the federal agents you and Brossart's crew abducted, along with _this _detective and _this_ consultant _after_ you murdered all these people."

"I didn't kill nobody!" Newcomb protested.

"We have the van you used in the abductions," Juliet said. "It's only a matter of time before _your_ prints are matched to those in the van, and you _will_ have killed someone if you don't tell us who did it."

"You won't find any prints!"

Hotchner and Juliet paused as Newcomb slammed his mouth closed, realizing that he'd just said something really stupid.

"Why won't we?" Hotchner asked.

"I want my phone call," Newcomb demanded. "And my lawyer."

Juliet glared at him and grabbed the box, heading out the door after Hotchner.

"You taking these back?" Newcomb held them up. Juliet shook her head.

"Maybe if you look at them you'll get your memory back," she snapped, slamming the door. She and Hotchner joined the others in observation as a cop went for a phone.

#

Reid followed Vick into the interrogation room carrying the box, which he set down on the table. Vick leaned against the glass.

"Darryl Rosen, 29," she started. "We are Chief of Police Karen Vick, and Supervisory Special Agent Reid from the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. Very nice rap. Attempted robbery, attempted murder, attempted rape . . . have you ever done anything _successfully_?"

"Half of those were when you were a teenager," Reid said. "Only reason you're out now, huh?"

"What am I here for?" Rosen asked.

"There's a small matter that you were trying to break into the home of a witness in a criminal case with the intent to kill him," Vick said. "Oh, and the murder of nine people, two of whom were cops, and the abductions of a federal agent, a detective, and a police consultant."

Rosen jerked, as if to hold up his hands protectively. "Whoa, whoa, I didn't _do_ that."

"He's lying," Rossi said with a grin. Gus squinted.

"You're sure?"

"Pretty damn sure." Rossi nodded. "We'll have better luck with him."

"It didn't seem like it back at the house."

"The ones who talk big are usually the ones that talk."

"You recognize him?" Vick slammed down a picture of Lassiter.

"I've seen him on TV."

"What about him?"

"Seen him on TV too?"

"And him?"

"Nope."

Reid leaned forward. "Where were you yesterday around ten pm?"

Rosen shrugged. "Mighta been out."

"Out?"

"With some friends."

"Or you could be lying through your teeth." Rosen jumped and stared at Reid with a look reminiscent of a deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen wheeler. Or maybe a tank. "Robert's next door telling us everything. He's saying you did it all, so why don't you tell us your side?"

"I – all right. I helped nab these guys." Rosen tapped Morgan's picture. "This guy hits like a damn _boxer_, man. I think my head's still ringing. We had the van on him first, 'cause we thought he'd cause the most noise and we'd need to get him out of there fast. We thought he'd be easy to grab," Rosen pointed at Shawn's picture next. "But he hit Lee over the head with a plant or somethin', and Wayne had to go in and help get him when we got there in the van. And him," Rosen tapped Lassiter's, "Took three, but he grazed Martin with a bullet. Got shot in the arm. I ain't seen them since then."

"Where are they?" Vick cut in, pushing aside concern over Rosen's last statement.

Rosen shook his head. "I can't piss off them." He pointed at the box.

"Who's behind this?"

"I can't piss them off. I—I want my lawyer."

With a sigh Reid glared at him as Vick picked up the box.

"You had better hope to God they're still alive when we find them," Vick said dangerously as they left and joined the others in observation. "How did it go with Newcomb?"

"He lawyered up pretty fast, but at least we know who's behind this now," Hotchner nodded at Rosen. "The Brossarts are definitely involved."

"He knows where they are," Rossi said, frowning.

"The officer's coming with the phone," Juliet said, hurrying back in. "I have a trace set up on it."

"He's going to warn them," Hotchner explained to Reid and Vick. "He lawyered up and wanted his phone call, so he's probably getting ready to inform those in charge that we're onto them. Hopefully, he'll be dense enough to stay on the line long enough."

"I don't know," Prentiss said. "He's done this before."

"Not where he's been in a group," Juliet replied, hoping against hope it would work.

They watched as he picked up the phone and dialed a number. Through the room they heard a voice pick up, but couldn't make it out. In response, Robert calmly tapped the headset in a short pattern, and hung up.

"Dammit." Rossi slammed his hand into the wall. "He knew we were going to trace it."

"Did anyone catch that?" Juliet asked.

"It sounded like Morse Code," Vick answered, scanning the room. "Agent Reid?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't make it out."

"It was SOS," Gus said.

"So they know, and we're no closer?" Vick asked as the agents traded a glance. She stormed out. "No lawyer will come in here at this time. You." She pointed at some of the cops by the desk as everyone followed her out. "You all take the guys in Interrogations A and B out of here and throw them in a holding cell. I want you to get out and patrol this area," Vick pointed at a map to the area Reid had marked out. "Do not get out of your cars without calling for backup first. Go unmarked. Now." They hurried out. "And in pairs! You, get five other officers and replace McNabb at the Spencer residence. I had better not hear that _anything_ happened there in the morning. You! I need you to get me all the records from the Brossart case from the records room." Vick spun back to the agents behind her.

Juliet and Gus traded glances. The last time they'd seen Vick like this was when she had been fully sleep deprived and about ready to kill nearly anyone. But this was different. She was running on about four hours of sleep and an overload of caffeine. This was pure, unadulterated _anger_.

"Let's find them." She stalked towards the boards.

"Has she ever been like this?" Prentiss asked as Rossi and Hotchner traded looks and followed her.

"She's only been this bad when she's been sleep deprived," Juliet said.

"No." Gus shook his head. "She's _pissed_."

Reid's phone rang. He answered it. "Garcia, do you have something?"

_Am I on speaker?_

"Give me a second." They joined the others at the boards. "Garcia has something."

_Don't worry, it's still not contagious. I ran every known family member of Jody Brossart and came up with a few things. Both parents disowned her after the conviction. No other family except for some aunts and such living in New York, who haven't spoken to her in at least ten years. _

"Tell me there's a but?" Prentiss said.

_There always is. She has a brother, name of Stuart Brossart. But the problem is that he's dropped off the grid. Period. Just after Jody's conviction, he sold his property, cancelled his credit cards, pulled all his money out of the bank, let his license expire, and disappeared. _

"Do you know where he is?"

_Sir, not yet. I'm checking to see if any identifiers pop up anywhere but so far I haven't had any luck. But I swear I'll find this bastard, and you'll be the first to know._

One of the forensics techs appeared next to Vick. "You asked to have this delivered as soon as possible." He handed her a folder.

"Thank you." Vick hurriedly opened it and skimmed it. "The blood from the van was two different types . . . we've got AB positive and the most was . . ." Vick closed her eyes. "O positive."

"Lassiter's O positive," Juliet said. "Is anyone AB positive?"

"Shawn," Gus answered, sinking back down into Juliet's chair. "I made him find out, with all the trouble we get into."

"No other types?"

Vick skimmed the report. "They found small traces of O negative."

Hotchner nodded. "That's Morgan's type."

Vick closed the file. "We have them all, then. Just need the fingerprints back."

#

Shawn yawned, trying to figure out why he couldn't stretch and why half of his face was stiff. He opened his eyes (which also hurt slightly) and stared at the concrete wall, confused. _Why am I in a basement? God, what is that _taste_? Where the hell . . . Oh yeah. Brossart dude. And that Lee guy._

"Laaassie?" Shawn asked, trying to poke the man tied to his back. "You awake?"

He got a stunted moan in reply. "Unfortunately."

"What about Morgan?"

There wasn't an answer.

"You slept through him and myself getting to become well acquainted with your friend," Lassiter answered. "I only woke up when you poked me."

"Sorry," Shawn coughed, then gasped as his chest tightened. "Damn it, I think I broke a rib."

"Considering that Lee hit you in the same place about six times, I'd guess so."

There was silence.

"Any idea what time it is?"

Lassiter groaned. "Do you think I have a clock pasted inside my eyelids, Spencer?"

"It'd be awesome." Shawn leaned back into Lassiter, making him jump. "Sorry, Lassie."

"It's ok."

More silence.

"How close do you think they are?"

Lassiter paused. _Well, now that they don't have you or me . . ._ "They've got to be close."

"They do have that Rossi guy." Shawn closed his eyes again, trying not to focus on how sore he was.

"Spencer."

"Yeah, Lassie?"

"We'll get out of this."

There was another pause. "Promise?"

Lassiter gave a hollow laugh. "If not, I'll be kneeling right next to you."

"True." Shawn shifted again, trying to find a comfortable way to sit while feeling like someone had . . . well, they _had_ tried to break every bone in his body. "How's your arm?"

Lassiter had tried not to think about the bullet wound to his arm, but dimly remembered reaching a new level of pain when Brossart had thought it'd be a good idea to dig the end of an electrified stick into the wound. He winced.

"That bad?"

"No, but I'm not sure I've gotten feeling in my arm yet."

"The one with the gunshot?"

"Yeah. Brossart decided to experiment with what happens when you shock an open wound."

This time, it was Shawn who winced. "God . . ."

"I've had worse."

"That's a lie if I've ever told one."

The door slammed open. Lassiter and Shawn jumped at the noise; Morgan didn't move, indicating that he was either unconscious or faking fairly well.

"Good morning," Brossart said, walking in with a grin. With a sinking feeling, Shawn realized that one of the men with him was Lee.

"What exactly are we considering 'morning?'" Shawn asked after wetting his lips. "You know, 'morning' really shouldn't start until at least ten, maybe eleven. But I'm not sure what you call a morning, so can we clear this up?"

"Shouldn't you know, psychic?"

Shawn squinted at Brossart's Rolex, trying to get a read. "Oph. Wait. It's 6."

The three captors stared at him for half a second (Lassiter shook his head) before resuming their normal activities.

"Lee." Brossart motioned towards Shawn. "He's had the most recovery time. Shall we?"

"Did I _kill_ you with that plant or something?" Shawn snapped, squirming as much as he could manage without being in undue pain.

Morgan hadn't indicated that he was awake for good reasons, namely, what he was about to do. As Lee approached and Shawn quickly learned that he couldn't quite move both Lassiter and Morgan enough to get away, Morgan braced himself on his sore arms, and as Lee started to go for the cuffs Morgan summoned up his remaining strength and slammed his good foot into the leg closest to him.

Lee collapsed onto the ground, gripping his leg. Morgan opened his eyes fully. _Dammit. If I'd had both legs your sorry ass would be out of commission._

"Get the psychic up," Brossart snapped. Morgan jerked forward.

"Brossart, you son of a bitch –"

"Morgan, stop. I can take it!" Shawn said, trying to regain his breath from struggling with a broken rib.

"Morgan, don't get yourself killed!"

"Get him up," Brossart yelled at the newer guy, stalking over and slamming the electric side of the baton into Morgan's chest. "Shut up. Just shut up, or I swear to God I'll go harder on him."

"Or you could just switch us out," Morgan snapped. "I did, after all, just knock his leg around!"

"Oh, don't worry, Agent Morgan." Brossart pointed the baton back at him. "You are, most certainly, next." He turned back and tossed the baton to Lee. Shawn leaned back, pretending like the approaching baton was nothing more than an annoying fly.

"I really like the decorating down here," Shawn said lightly. "Very nice. But it could use some more color . . . green, perhaps? Green would go very nicely with the lighting . . ."

#

Everyone regrouped around seven the next morning. Rossi and Juliet were sent out to question Brossart's parents, Reid settled down to wait on a laptop conversation with Garcia, and the others continued to interrogate the other two with their court-provided lawyers present, and get no where.

Rossi and Juliet stepped out of her car outside of a small Cape Cod style house on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. They walked to the front door, and Juliet knocked.

"Here's to hoping they know where they are," Rossi muttered. The door opened to reveal a shorter woman with long, dark hair, who eyed the duo suspiciously.

"Can I help you?"

"Mrs. Brossart?" Juliet asked. She nodded. "I'm Detective O'Hara with the Santa Barbara Police, and this is SSA David Rossi with the FBI. We'd like to ask you some questions?"

"FBI?" She went pale.

"May we come in?"

"Uh . . .why are you here?"

"We need to ask you some questions about the murdered police officers," Juliet answered.

"Uh . . . right this way." She led them into a living room styled in a country theme. "Would you like to have a seat?"

"I'll stand," Rossi said, skimming over the pictures on the mantel. There were none of Jody Brossart, whose picture he had become very acquainted with, and a few of a blonde man with an athletic frame and dark eyes. He seemed about twenty, if not younger, in the pictures. He glanced back at Juliet, who had taken a seat on the couch, and nodded.

"We need to ask you some questions about your son, Stuart."

"Why?" Mrs. Brossart immediately looked suspicious. "I haven't seen or heard from him in years. Have you found him? Is he . . ."

"No," Juliet cut her off. "Unfortunately we're looking for him in connection to the recent murders of police officers."

Mrs. Brossart went even paler. "Oh no. Stuart would never do that."

"How was he after Jody was arrested and charged?" Rossi asked. "Was he the youngest?"

Mrs. Brossart nodded. "Yes. He loved Jody. We knew she had been hanging out with a bad crowd but we'd never thought it was that bad. And then . . . to know that she was the ringleader . . ." she sighed. "I have always trusted the police, and they had good evidence."

"How was he after the trial?" Juliet asked.

"About expected. He was angry at the system for using her as a scapegoat, and angry at us for cutting ties with her. He had a small construction firm at the time that he sold to one of his best friends, who was also his partner in the firm, along with all his properties, his cars, everything." She shook her head. "It . . . I haven't seen him since. No phone calls, no letters, no email, nothing."

"Do you have any idea where he might be?" Juliet asked. Mrs. Brossart shook her head. "Mrs. Brossart, it's very important. He may be holding a detective, a police consultant, and a federal agent hostage."

Mrs. Brossart put her hand over her mouth. "Oh my god. I saw the conference but I never thought . . ."

"Mrs. Brossart?" Rossi turned back from the mantel. "We need you to tell us _anything_ you can about him. What did he seem like when he left?"

"Angry." She shrugged. "No. Beyond angry. He kept going on about needing revenge, and to prove her innocence . . ." She paused. "Wait. I may . . . Jim said that he may have seen Stuart in the warehouse district the other day."

"Jim?"

"Stuart's friend from the construction company. He said that he may have seen Stuart leaving a warehouse – called us to ask if Stuart was back in town or not."

"We need to know where this warehouse is." Juliet's pen was at the ready. Mrs. Brossart shook her head.

"You'd need to ask Jim. He lives right next door."

"Thank you, Mrs. Brossart. Call us if you know any more." Rossi handed her his card as they left to find Jim Miles. Surprisingly, their knock at the next house was answered by a dark-haired, tall, stocky man.

"Can I help you?"

"Agent Rossi with the FBI, Detective O'Hara, SBPD," Rossi said. "Are you James Miles?"

"Yeah. What's this about?"

"We need to ask you if you've been in contact with Stuart Brossart recently." Juliet answered.

"I may have seen him leaving the warehouse on Rosecroft three days ago," Jim answered. "I asked his mother if he was back in town but she hadn't heard from him in years. Why?"

"Thank you." Rossi and Juliet left him standing awkwardly in the doorway as they hurried for Juliet's car. Rossi flipped open his phone. "Hotch. We have an address."

***

Oh boy! Is the end in sight for our trio? I know and my beta knows, but you don't know. Mwhahahahaha.


	13. Chapter 12: Heavy Duty Security

In honor of the fact that, despite my complaining, I just got the highest score in my deviance class on my test . . . I'm posting another chapter!!!!

This might be the last for a little while. Writing wise, I'm on Chapter 15 – editing wise, not so much.

I give the following reviewers cookies in any form they choose . . . literally.

the-vampire-act: Maybe . . . maybe not. Thanks for the lovely cookies. =)

jareaufan: I am a cold, harsh person . . . mwhahahaha.

Crowinator: Thanks!

Once more, I own only a Coke Zero, word processor, and cookies.

**Chapter 12: You Should Have Gone with the Heavy-Duty Security . . .**

Shawn was coherent at this point. Morgan was still unconscious. And Lassiter was glaring at the door, demanding that Brossart get back in here. Lassiter was about to kill him. He hadn't figured out just _how_ he'd do it yet, but knew there had to be a way.

The door slammed open, and both Lassiter and Shawn jumped. Brossart and three of his companions – one of them was Allen, the other Lee, and Shawn didn't recognize the last one – stormed in. "Get them up."

They moved forward. Lee and Brossart unlocked and pulled Shawn to his feet first, Brossart's gun held square against his head. Lassiter groaned. So much for trying to make another break for it. They uncuffed the detective from Morgan and pulled him to his feet. As the last man started to revive Morgan, Shawn looked at Lassiter and then the door. Lassiter shook his head. Shawn repeated the gesture more dramatically. Another head shake. Shawn rolled his eyes, annoyed that Lassiter wouldn't try it. Lassiter grit his teeth down and glared back. Shawn made a face.

The remaining captor hauled a still-dazed Morgan to his one good leg. He quickly skimmed the other two – looked like there were no more injuries than there had been, at least . . .

"We're going for a drive," Brossart announced. "I suggest you cooperate, or you can forget about getting the psychic here home to his daddy. Am I clear?"

Lassiter nodded mutely, giving Shawn a begrudging, almost pleading look. Shawn cocked his head slightly. _Do SOMETHING!_ Lassiter mouthed.

"Ooooh . . . I'm getting a very strong vibration . . ." Shawn started. Lassiter rolled his eyes. _Anything but that_.

"Do I look like I care?" Brossart jerked his head at the door. Allan, holding Lassiter, pushed his charge towards it.

They were half-led, half-drug to an underground garage, where a twelve-passenger van with black-tinted windows sat ready. Brossart pushed Shawn into the far back against the window, gun held continuously against his temple. Lassiter was forced into the next seat up, and Morgan was forcibly pulled into the first. Lee climbed up in the driver's seat, pushed the van into gear, and the van rolled out.

#

Rossi and Juliet met the others in the parking lot behind the questionable warehouse on Rosecroft. Hotchner directed Rossi around to the front with Reid, Prentiss, Vick, and some of the black and whites, and Juliet joined JJ, Hotchner, and several other cops at the back door.

_Preparing to enter_, Vick's voice crackled over her headset.

"On three," Hotchner said, his voice echoing in the air and over Juliet's headset. "One. Two. Three." He slammed open the door, gun immediately ready. "FBI!"

The door directly opposite them slammed open and the others rushed in, Vick yelling "SBPD!"

The sole occupant of the wide, open warehouse glanced at the approaching, armed officers, and slowly raised his hands. McNabb hurried forward and started patting him down for weapons. Juliet skimmed the walls for any explanation of where the others were being held. Her eyes settled on a padlocked door.

"Chief!" She started towards the door, gun ready. Reid, Prentiss, and Vick joined them, waving over a few officers.

"Anyone have bolt cutters?" Prentiss called back. The captive, currently being cuffed and read his rights, motioned to the far wall. One of the officers went to get them and tossed them to Rossi, who sprinted over. With a nod as the others trained their weapons on the door, Rossi snipped the lock and stepped to the side. Vick stepped back and kicked the door, revealing a dimly lit, subterranean stairwell down to a hallway. Prentiss started down first, gun at the ready.

When they had regrouped at the bottom of the stairs, Vick stepped to the front. Rossi pointed, and she started down. The corridor took a sharp right at a door.

"Clear!" She yelled after examining it, and they started down. Halfway down this hall, a door stood open. Once there, Vick and Reid took either side. Vick nodded, and the duo stepped into the room, guns at the ready.

"Damn it!" Vick swore, lowering her weapon. "Clear!"

"We could only have missed them by minutes!" Reid scowled at the empty room as the others quickly cleared out the rest of the basement.

"I traced a blood trail to an underground garage. It looks like they loaded them into a van and took off." Rossi rejoined them. "Damn . . ."

"We need a forensics team," Vick said, turning away with her phone.

"Reid, that's quite a bit of blood," Rossi muttered. Reid nodded.

"Not enough to be fatal."

Rossi nodded, skimmed the room again, and left it to forensics. With a small shudder, Reid eyed the wooden chair and slowly backed out of the room.

#

"Ninety-nine pine-a-apples on the wall . . . ninety-nine pine-a-apples . . . take one down, pass it around . . . ninety-eight pine-a—"

"Spencer!"

"Laaassiee . . ."

"Shut. Up." Brossart snapped.

"Only if you buy me a smoothie."

The click of the gun's safety being removed echoed in the silent van, and Shawn sighed heavily. He shifted slightly and glanced out the window, trying to restore circulation to his bound hands.

"Lee," the man with Morgan asked. Morgan had stretched his leg out in front of him and was busy inspecting the once-again bleeding gunshot wound. "You know where we're going?"

"'Course I do, dumbass. Otherwise I wouldn't be driving!"

"You know we ain't supposed to be going this way!"

In the ensuing argument, Lassiter discreetly moved his head toward the window. "Spencer," he hissed.

"Lassie?"

"You paying attention to the road?"

"Yeah."

"Good." Before they were caught, Lassiter looked forward again. Shawn glanced back outside the window.

_192_. Shawn caught a glimpse of the road they were on, just before Lee turned the van onto another road – and Shawn knew where they were going.

They were headed for the national forest – and as soon as they got in there, they were screwed.

#

"Did you find them?" Vick groaned as Henry's voice greeted her from the conference area, where he'd been going over the case while waiting anxiously for any news. As they filed in, pulling off vests and sinking quietly into chairs, Henry's face fell and he went pale. "You _did_ find them?"

"Henry . . ."

"You didn't find them? Gus said you found them! He said you knew where they were!"

"I didn't say that they'd _found_ them!" Gus protested weakly. "I said they _thought_ –"

"Henry!" Vick pointed. He dropped into one of the chairs. "We found where they had been holding them, yes. They're on the run. They must have been tipped off that we were coming."

Henry, silently seething, decided not to comment on that. "Then where does that leave us?"

"Back to square one." Rossi said.

"This has stopped his ritual," Hotchner said, looking over the boards. "We're all back to square one."

"So we have no idea what he's going to do next?" Juliet asked, voice breaking.

"No," Prentiss answered. "We could have an idea. The only problem is . . ." She paused, not sure anyone wanted her to continue.

"What, Agent Prentiss?" Vick asked.

"This could turn into a spree kill," Reid summed up monotonously.

"Where does that leave Shawn, Carlton, and your agent?" Henry asked, eyes flicking back and forth between them. Rossi sighed heavily.

"Unfortunately . . . as the first victims."

#

The van stopped at a cabin on a lane off an access road into the forest. It looked like it had been built at least a hundred years prior, shacked up just well enough to withstand storms.

"Nice place," Shawn said, glancing over at Brossart. "Must have a great real estate agent?"

"Get them out."

Lee helped Wayne – as they had now learned the name of the last man – pull Morgan to his feet and walk him into the cabin, followed by Lassiter. Lassiter glanced back at Shawn as Brossart forced him out of the van at gunpoint. _I might . . . just might . . . _He glanced to the woods on either side of the cabin. _If I had enough momentum I could roll down the hill and get fairly far away . . . but that would be pretty stupid . . . Crap. _Lassiter lost sight of the woods as he was pulled into the tiny cabin.

It really was tiny – it looked to be, at the most, two rooms. One of them was where Morgan was being all but carried into, and where Allan was walking him towards. There was a _bang_ behind him as Shawn tripped over the door frame and fell onto the floor.

"Really, Spencer?" He asked, half-turning before being pushed into the room. Brossart hauled Shawn to his feet.

"Owww, Stewy! Easy on the arms!"

Brossart slammed Shawn into the wall, forearm pressed across his throat and gun pressed painfully into his temple. Shawn swallowed slightly. "Do you think this is a _game_, Spencer?"

"Not at all," Shawn replied, tone flat. There was a click as Brossart cocked the gun.

"How about now?"

"I already said it wasn't, ok?"

Brossart released him and pushed him through the door. The trio heard it close and lock behind him.

"They're not cuffing us back together?" Shawn asked, hoping his eyes adjusted to the immense lack of light.

"Apparently not," Morgan answered.

"God, I wish we had some light," Lassiter said. "We need to take a look at that leg, Morgan."

"I'm fine. The bleeding is all but stopped."

"It's the 'all but' that worries me."

"I'm more worried about the change in profile."

Lassiter could almost see Shawn roll his eyes. "Really? You could be bleeding to death and you're worried about the profile?"

"Knowing the profile means we might be able to get out of here. Either he's going to use us for something else or he's going to kill us out here and dump us somewhere. Either way, he's upping the stakes."

"Or just not dump us," Lassiter added.

"Or just leave us here," Morgan agreed.

"Am I the only optimist here?" Shawn asked, eyes slowly adjusting to the point that he could make out darker shadows where he assumed Lassiter and Morgan were. "Really? Maybe we're just having a nice road trip."

The door opened, and the three winced at the sudden influx of light. Shawn groaned. "Don't you guys _warn_ people?"

"Shut up, psychic," Brossart snapped, glaring at him as he directed his three cohorts to hang a large sheet of paper on the wall. Shawn squinted at it, eyes traversing the careful blueprint displayed on it. When he reached the name, Brossart's plan fell together.

"So now that you can't kill us execution-style and dump us where we can be found, you're going to have us help you break her out?"

Lassiter looked back and forth in between Shawn and the blueprints. "You aren't serious."

"Completely." Brossart grinned slightly. "In fact, we're so serious that you can even have some light to study this in."

"There is no way in _hell_," Morgan snapped.

"Excellent. That's what I was hoping you would say." He jerked his head towards Lassiter. "Get him up."

Lassiter kicked out at Wayne as he hauled him to his feet. Allan helped him and they pulled a struggling Lassiter out the door. Brossart trained his gun at Shawn, who looked about ready to jump them.

"I would suggest, psychic," Brossart said quietly. "You study that plan and find us a way in, and we _might_ bring him back in one piece." With that, Brossart left and locked the door behind him.

"I don't like this," Shawn said slowly, glancing back down at Morgan.

"Neither do I." Morgan glanced up at the plans. "How does he power this place, anyway?"

"No idea." Shawn eyed the plans. "He really wants us to break _into_ a prison?"

"I believe so. Can you make anything out?" Morgan sighed. "I'd get off my lazy ass and help you out, but I'm having a problem standing."

"I can safely say I'm the only criminal in this room. I'll take care of it."

"You'd be surprised, Shawn."

With a quick and surprised glance down at Morgan, Shawn reverted back to the plans, hoping against hope that for just once, he could _actually_ be psychic, solve this case, and somehow spirit them all out of here and back home.

#

The trio pushed Lassiter into one of the chairs and quickly tied him down. He glared up at Brossart.

"Cut the sleeves off."

"Excuse me?" Lassiter snapped. "This is a good dress shirt!" _Although it really isn't anymore, is it?_

"Shut _up_, detective." Brossart tapped a short, thin blade against one hand. "I really do get tired of hearing you all talk."

"Go to hell."

"Oooh . . . getting testy, are we?" Brossart focused on Lassiter's bare forearm. "I think I know how to fix this." With careful deliberation, Brossart swiftly flicked the knife against Lassiter's arm. Lassiter tried to jerk away but was held in place by the restraints.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"The Chinese practiced a form of this," Brossart continued. "Called _lingchi_. 'Slow slicing.' Sounds horrible, doesn't it?" He pulled the knife down Lassiter's arm again as Lassiter bit his lip. "Could take hours to die . . . sometimes, they would give the condemned opium to ease the pain."

"You are one sick bastard," Lassiter responded. Brossart slid the knife down his upper arm, cutting close to the gunshot wound. Lassiter breathed in sharply.

"Let yourself relax . . ." Brossart grinned. "You wouldn't want to rush me, would you?"

"Absolutely not." Lassiter bit back a yelp as Brossart pressed the tip of the knife into his bicep and drew it down on the other side of the wound.

"Still not cooperative. But it isn't really you I'm too worried about cooperating right now, is it?"

"They aren't going to help you," Lassiter said with a confidence he didn't quite feel (_I've seen Spencer do crazier things_). "They aren't that stupid."

Brossart inspected Lassiter's hand as he tried to pull it back. "We'll see about that, won't we?"

#

"We have a preliminary forensics report on the scene." Juliet hurried over to the boards with a folder in her hand.

"And?" Rossi hardly turned from the first crime scene picture he was analyzing.

"The blood types from the chair were O negative, AB positive, and O positive, same as in the vans. So it's consistent with our guys."

"And the blood pool?" Reid asked.

Juliet sighed. "O negative. They're running DNA on it now, but God only knows how long that'll take."

Reid frowned, staring down at the table. That meant Morgan was probably fairly wounded. Damn it.

"And some of the blood splatter was consistent with high-velocity impact," Juliet continued quietly. "But the techs said it wouldn't have been fatal. There wasn't _enough_ blood."

"So they _shot_ him?" JJ stood up to look over Juliet's shoulder. Rossi let out a low chuckle.

"I don't think that Morgan getting shot is very funny, Rossi," Prentiss admonished. Rossi shook his head.

"It isn't. I'm just imagining _how_ he pissed off a sadist enough to just get outright shot."

"I think I can come up with numerous scenarios that Agent Morgan, Carlton, and Mr. Spencer could get involved in that would get _one_ of them shot," Vick said, joining them. "I heard you had the forensics."

"Right here." Juliet handed her the folder.

_Hey guys! I come bearing gifts!_ Garcia's voice chirped out of Reid's computer, making him jump.

"What do you have, Garcia?" Hotchner leaned on Reid's chair as the others gathered around the computer.

_Forensics sent me the prints, like you asked. There's only one unidentified set in both the warehouse and the van. All the prints match, otherwise. I'm sending over the names and mini-rap-sheets as we speak._

"Excellent. Thanks, Garcia."

_Any news?_

"Nothing yet."

_Okay._ Her face fell._ Keep me updated. _

"We will."

"We've got Lee Arnsdorf, Wayne McCall, Allan Lewis." Hotchner read off the names. Juliet scribbled them down and hurried towards records. "Attempted murders, attempted robberies . . . Successful robberies . . . drug possession . . . and that appears to be the recent list."

"There's a trend," Reid said. "It almost conclusively links them all to the crimes."

"What is it?" Vick skimmed the names, trying to remember anything she could to link them together.

"There's this huge gap in their records. They just stop committing crimes about six months ago, and haven't been caught doing anything since."

"So they had to have been doing _something_ those past six months . . . like abducting and murdering people." Prentiss leaned on her hand.

"We've got three of our guys, then. That just leaves Brossart." Rossi turned his attention back to the crime scene photos. "And no idea how long he's going to keep them alive."

"Or if . . ." Gus' voice dropped off and he looked away, leaving the end of the sentence hanging in the air. He could almost hear Shawn's voice berating him – _Don't be such a negative narwhale! Of course we're alive!_ – and resolved that, if Shawn _didn't_ survive this case, Gus would singlehandedly resurrect and then kill him.


	14. Chapter 13: Luck?

Saturday was my birthday. I am doing a very hobbit-like thing and giving you all a present because of this. :)

jareaufan: Absolutely. I'll get my little Keeblers on it right away.

the-vampire-act: It does tend to be its own character, doesn't it? Wonder when it'll get lines . . .

animaluvr123: Thanks! Hope this is quick enough for you. :)

(Unresolved question)

umino-gaara: Actually, you'd be surprised. There tends to be a hierarchy among criminals, especially when you get into prisons. Gangs tend to be at the top primarily due to their ability to use violence. Serial killers are usually up around with gangs. The lowest you can really be in prison is a rapist, a child molester, or yes, a cop-killer. It's a strange thing, but does happen.

As usual, I own nothing.

****

**Chapter 13: Luck Runs Both Ways**

Both Shawn and Morgan's heads jerked up as a yelp sounded from the other room.

"What the hell are they doing to him?!" Shawn kicked the wall. "Stop it!"

"Shawn . . . _Shawn_! That isn't going to work. They _want_ you to do that." Morgan leaned his head back against the wall. "They need us to figure out how to get into there, and the only way we'd agree to help them is if one of us was getting tortured. So we need to focus. How would _you_ do this?"

"I _wouldn't_," Shawn answered. "Unless it was Gus. But then, Gus wouldn't be in a _women's_ prison." He redirected his attention to the plans. "Why doesn't he just _wait_ until her sentence is up? It's only ten more years. Maybe a little longer."

"Desire for power and control . . . psychotic break . . . I can think of quite a few reasons."

There was another yelp from the front room. Shawn clenched his fists.

"Air ducts?" Morgan asked.

"They're barred every six feet," Shawn answered tonelessly. Morgan pushed back the five million scenarios involving Brossart and Lassiter running through his head. This was _not _the time to get distracted.

"Sewers?" They winced as another yelp sounded.

"Same deal."

"Posing as security guards?"

"Would be the most likely to work."

Morgan bit his lip. "Eh. It depends on their security system."

Shawn's eyes lit up. "So we need more information?"

"I think so." Morgan grinned as he caught onto Shawn's plan. "And hopefully, he doesn't have it just stashed away somewhere."

Jumping up and down, Shawn started kicking the door. "Stewy! Hello? Can you hear me?"

"God . . ." Morgan muttered, shaking his head. "I'm starting to feel really sorry for Lassiter."

"What's that supposed to mean? Lassie loves me!" Shawn said as the door opened, bringing him face to face with Brossart's gun. "Oh. Hi."

"What?" Brossart snapped. Shawn tried vainly to see around him.

"Um . . . we need more information. Like the security system. And –"

"Names of guards," Morgan added.

"And guard schedules –"

"And an official ID from the prison –"

"Stuff like that," Shawn summed up. "We can't figure it out otherwise."

"Aren't you a psychic? Figure it out yourself."

"It doesn't work like that!" Shawn yelled as the door closed. He kicked it again.

"He has a point, Shawn."

Shawn sighed and sank down against the wall. "I'm not a psychic, Morgan." Morgan shrugged. "No. Seriously. I'm not. I've just got really good observational skills and a photographic memory. Dad trained me to be a cop, but I didn't want to be like him, and then I had to pass myself off as a psychic to avoid getting arrested for knowing too much about a crime that I called in a tip for." He pulled his knees up to his chest and set his head down on them. "And since we're all gonna die soon, it doesn't matter if I tell you."

"We are _not_ all going to die," Morgan snapped. "Lassiter and I have been doing our best to be realistic because we were certain you couldn't be. If you lose that optimism, Shawn, we _are_ all going to die."

Shawn shook his head. "I can't keep it up, Morgan. Not with them doing God-knows-what to Lassiter, and expecting me to get something I _can't_ get because I'm _not_ psychic!"

"You called him Lassiter."

"Yeah."

"Don't do it again. Come on. There's got to be something we're missing."

"There is." Shawn perked up. "The fact that as soon as we give them what they want, we're dead." Morgan nodded. "But if we give them a lead that needs more information . . ."

"It buys everyone else – and us – time." Morgan lit up. "Guards. We'll use the guards."

"That they need to find out how to replace a couple of guards."

"Which would require knowledge of who would be guarding the cells, and where they live, so that they'd have to stalk them down."

"Which'll take weeks, at least."

"And until they get her out they'll want to keep us alive for leverage, just in case."

Shawn jumped to his feet. "Stewy!" He kicked the door again. "We have something!"

The door opened. "What is it this time?"

"We know how you can do it, but I can't figure out particulars for you." Morgan nodded enthusiastically in the background.

"How?" Brossart glared at Shawn, who swallowed slightly.

"Well . . . um . . ."

"If you figured out who the guards on your sister's cell block were, you could potentially switch places with them," Morgan inserted. "You'd do that by making sure they just missed that one day of work."

"And you could get her out that way."

"How long would this take?"

"Um . . . not sure," Shawn said. "I can't really see the future – I see things in the present, so I couldn't tell you if I wanted to."

Brossart closed the door again and turned back to his cohorts. "We'll give the detective a break. Put him back."

Lassiter half looked up as Wayne and Allan approached him. He was still struggling to believe that the duo had come up with what could be a workable plan in the right hands. They untied his arms from the chair and started to pull them behind him. "Ow . . . ow . . . there is no need to _pull_ on . . . oww . . ." Wayne pushed him to his feet to avoid the blood running down his arms. Allan and Wayne shoved him towards the door, which Brossart opened as Lassiter stumbled through it. It slammed behind him.

"Lassie!"

"Spencer . . ." Lassiter staggered to the wall and collapsed down it. "Not . . . not right now."

Shawn and Morgan both noticed the blood at the same time. "What in hell was he doing to you, Lassiter?"

"Suffice to say it involved knives," Lassiter answered through clenched teeth. He looked up at Shawn. "What do you want?"

"I'm going to take a look. Lean forward."

"Spencer . . ."

"Don't argue with me right now, Lassie. Lean forward." Begrudgingly, Lassiter leaned forward as Shawn sat next to him. Shawn winced, trying to examine the hundreds of small cuts decorating Lassiter's arms and hands. "Damn it. I didn't want to do this."

"Do what?"

Shawn slid his hands under his feet, one at a time, pulling his cuffed hands in front of him. "That," Shawn gasped, pain shooting up through his chest. _Crap. Broken rib. I wondered why that side hurt. _"I didn't want to alert them that I could do that." Shawn started to pull off his polo. "Glad, once again, that I always wear two shirts." Pulling the shirt off onto his handcuffs, he pressed it against Lassiter's arms. Lassiter winced. "Yeah, this is gonna to hurt like a bitch, but it'll stop the bleeding."

"Why'd you guys tell them a plan?" Lassiter asked through grit teeth.

"To stop that." Morgan jerked his head at the door. Lassiter groaned.

"I was doing absolutely fine by myself."

"Obviously your definition of 'fine' isn't the same as mine," Shawn retorted, lifting the shirt slightly. "They're like . . . tiny little paper cuts . . . ehhh!" He pressed the shirt back and Lassiter winced.

"Thanks for reminding me, Spencer."

They fell silent for a while. Finally, Shawn pulled his shirt back again. "Looks like the bleeding's stopped."

"That's good." Shawn stood and Lassiter leaned back against the wall, wincing. "Now what are you going to do?"

"About what?" Shawn looked down at the shirt hanging off his handcuffs. "Oh. About that. It's a lot easier to get them back behind me than it is to get them in front."

"I may regret asking this . . ." Morgan started. "But . . . Shawn? How exactly did you learn how to do that?"

Shawn shrugged. "When we were kids, Gus got a hold of Dad's cuffs one day and decided to sneak up on me when I wasn't looking. Unfortunately, Dad had the keys, and he wasn't there."

"Oh."

"All right. We need a next move." Lassiter looked up at the plans. "You've already told them to do something involving guards."

"Basically."

"So what next?"

"Raise carrier pigeons and send a message?"

"Shawn . . ."

"What do we have?" Lassiter scanned the other two.

"I've got a bloody shirt, a pair of pants, and some shoes." Shawn looked down. "Are we including the handcuffs?"

"Why not?" Morgan said. "I've got about the same, but there's also a pesky gunshot wound in my leg on top of it all."

"Definitely trumps everything so far. What about you, Lassie?"

"Half-ruined shirt on top of everything else, and let's _not_ go into injuries just yet?"

"Fair enough. And it looks like we've got the plans to a women's prison, a couple of electric lights, and . . . yeah." Shawn nodded. "Seems about right. No one happens to have a shoe phone, do they?"

#

Hotchner stared at the lone man sitting in the interrogation room. "How far away is his lawyer?"

"He should be here by now." Vick glanced out the door of the observation room. "There he is."

A man in a suit was let into the room, introducing himself to Rosen as one of the public defenders. Rosen answered with a slight grunt. Hotchner nodded.

"Chief?"

"Ready if you are."

The duo left the silent observation room and entered the interrogation room.

"I don't believe we've met," Hotchner began. "I'm SSA Hotchner, with the BAU. I'm certain you remember the Chief of the Police Department here?" Rosen answered with a slight nod. "Good. Now, I'm willing to cut a deal with you, if you cooperate."

"Don't incriminate yourself," the defender muttered. Rosen shrugged.

"What sort of deal?"

"For one," Vick said. "We can keep you out of the same prison as the Brossarts and their lackeys, ensuring your safety."

"We may also be able to give you a shot at parole. But you need to help us first."

Rosen paused. The defender leaned over and whispered something, and Rosen nodded. "Can you guarantee that I'll be safe?"

"As much as possible, yes." Vick crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

"I don't know where they are. But I do know that Brossart talked about a cabin up in the national forest that he'd fixed up. He only really told Lee and Wayne where it was – I think he drove them up there at one point. That's probably where they are."

"Did he say if it was near a landmark of some sort?"

"It was off an access road. I think he said near La Cumbre."

Reid was already on his phone with Garcia.

"Does he know where it is?" Juliet muttered. Rossi shook his head.

"No. I doubt he's lying about this."

"He isn't showing the right tells." Prentiss sighed. "Unfortunately, he has no idea where they are."

Juliet stared at the man talking to Hotchner and Vick about the cabin and what he knew. There was no telling that they were even still alive. If Brossart kept his pattern then they only had until the next morning to find them. But if Brossart hadn't kept to his pattern, they could already be dead. She bit her lip. No. They couldn't be dead.

Reid covered the mouthpiece of his phone. "Rossi, Garcia wants to know if you have any contacts that can get you satellite access so she can start scanning the mountains."

Rossi thought for a second. "I have someone I can call in the CIA, but Jason was always . . ." Rossi shook his head, pulled out his phone, and started out of the room. "I'll see what I can do."

Reid relayed Rossi's response to Garcia, receiving a heavy sigh from the other end. _I'll see what I can do on this end._

"Garcia, _please _don't hack the CIA."

_I won't. Scout's honor._

Reid shook his head. "Call when you have something?"

_Only if you beat me to it._ There was a click, and Reid put away his phone.

"She'll call me back with anything."

"She's good," JJ said. "She'll find something."

Prentiss bit her lip. "I sure hope so."

#

Back in Quantico, Garcia sighed, running her hand over the end of one of her feather pens. Sliding across to another computer, she brought up a search and typed in a single name, sending the computer running through its files. With a _ding_, one popped up. She opened it and dialed the number.

It rang several times, and Garcia started to wonder if anyone would pick up. After all, the caller ID would read Federal Government, and with the way he was . . . there was a click, and Garcia sat up.

_Hello?_

Garcia closed her eyes as she recognized the voice.

"Mr. Gideon?"

#

Shawn started to scan the room, looking for any weak spots in the reconstruction. Unfortunately, it looked as if Brossart had, at least, put his construction training to good use for one particular aspect of life.

"See anything?" Morgan asked.

"No. The walls seem pretty flimsy but that would attract too much attention." Shawn nudged one of the outside walls with his foot for a demonstration. "I can walk around and test every board here, but even then there wouldn't be enough room to get all of us out. Maybe Lassie, but . . ."

The door clicked and Shawn froze, looking down at his hands. In an instant he was back on the floor, starting to pull his feet back through his arms.

"Hurry up, Spencer," Lassiter hissed, struggling to his feet.

"I'm trying, Lassie!" Shawn sat upright, gasping, with his arms safely behind him. "All right."

The door opened and Brossart stepped through with his three friends. He crossed his arms. "Now that we've given you sufficient time to . . ." His eyes settled on Shawn, and narrowed.

"Time to what?" Morgan said, realizing that Brossart had noticed that something was different.

"Check his hands." Brossart jerked his head at Shawn, who leaned back against the wall.

"I'm still cuffed, promise," Shawn said as Wayne approached him.

"Yeah, he is," Lassiter added. Brossart glared over at him as Wayne pulled Shawn to his feet.

"He's cuffed but he's got his one shirt off," Wayne announced.

"I can explain this," Shawn said.

"Then do so." Brossart unclipped the safety on his gun.

"This is actually one of those 'magic shirts,'" Shawn started. Lassiter groaned. "Kinda like the magic trick where you can get the one ring off the other without breaking it? Yeah. They're all over New York, I hear. Didn't you know?"

"I am _sick_ of your asinine comments!" Brossart snapped. He leveled the gun at Lassiter.

"Whoa," Morgan said. "Stewart, just calm down. Just relax. It isn't what you think it is – don't do it!"

"Okay!" Shawn said. "Okay! I slipped my cuffs in front of me to stop Lassie's bleeding, okay? I put them back – no harm, no foul, right?"

In answer, Brossart applied pressure on the trigger. Lassiter swallowed. "Is it?"

"Stewart, come on. Nothing's wrong. Everything's okay."

"Shoot _him_." Lassiter jerked his head at Shawn.

"Lassie . . ." Lassiter glared at him. _It's a diversion tactic, dumbass._

"No," Brossart said with a slight smile. "I know exactly who to take this out on."

He squeezed the trigger.


	15. Chapter 14: Gunshots & Resolutions

Gonna update, out of the goodness of my heart. And note to all y'all: once this is done, I'm going to be working on a straight CM fic that's going to be sheer epicness. Just . . . wait for it . . .

Thanks to my lovely 2 reviewers. *evil glare at the lurkers*

Disclaimer: I own a scarecrow, but not either of these epic shows. Or the CIA, for that matter.

**Chapter 14: Gunshots and Resolutions**

_Garcia?_

"Yes, sir. From the Unit."

_I thought I gave Aaron explicit directions that I was __**never**__ to be contacted . . ._

"Sir, this was an emergency."

_Emergency or not, I . . ._

"Morgan got kidnapped."

There was a long pause on the other end. _Where's the team?_

"They're in Santa Barbara, California."

There was another pause. _That police officer business?_

"Yes, sir."

_What do you need?_

"I . . . um . . . do you still have your contacts in the CIA?"

_I have a few strings I can pull. Why?_

"Can you get me access to one of the heat sensing satellites Morgan told me about?"

There was another pause. _I'll see what I can do and call you back._

"Thank you, sir."

Gideon hung up. Garcia spun back to the computer running an analysis of the national forest. Staring blankly at it, she tapped her pen against the desk. _Come on, sir . . . come on, sir . . . _

Her phone rang. She jumped and hit for speakerphone. "This is FBI Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia."

_The CIA is sending you a link granting you access to their satellite._

Garcia breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, sir."

_Good luck, Garcia._

"Thank you, sir."

And he was gone. Garcia had started to punch in Reid's number when her phone rang.

"Penelope Garcia?"

_Garcia! I need you to run a number!_

She paused. "You found them?!"

#

Lassiter redirected his glare from Shawn to the gun in front of him. Brossart really wasn't going to shoot him. Not yet, at least. This was just one more of those psychological things that he'd done for the past two days . . . _if anything, it'll go right into the wall, and when we get the hell out of here I just might kill him . . ._ Which is why Lassiter was taken off guard for the actual retort of the gun, and had hardly started to dodge when searing pain shot through his body. _Oh shit. He actually __**did**__ shoot me_ . . . Lassiter stumbled back against the wall and felt a second of pain shoot through his head before everything went blissfully numb and black.

Wayne slammed Shawn back against the wall as he tried to throw himself at Brossart and block the bullet. Morgan found himself on his feet at the shot, forced to lean against the wall when his leg nearly gave out.

Brossart lowered his arm in the silent room. Shawn stared blankly at Lassiter's unmoving form, trying to comprehend that he'd actually gotten Lassiter shot . . . _He shot him . . . he actually did . . . He – he wasn't lying . . . oh God . . . _for a split second Shawn's eyes met Morgan's.

Morgan looked from the visibly stunned consultant to the either unconscious or dead detective. With another glance back at Shawn he leaned against the wall and started to limp towards Lassiter. _Damn it, Shawn. _He tried to resist blaming him, but it was difficult – at least for now.

"Lassie!" Shawn finally found his voice as he tried to wrest out of Wayne's grip on his shirt. "You shot him! Why the hell did you shoot him?!"

Brossart chose not to answer and jerked his head towards Morgan. "Get him into the front room."

"I don't want to seem like I'm not interested in spending more time with you, but you _did_ just shoot him," Morgan said through grit teeth. "So I think you can give us a few minutes before you start being a sadistic bastard." He shrugged Allan's hand off his shoulder.

"Unfortunately, Agent, I disagree." Allan and Lee got a better grip on Morgan's shirt and half-drug, half-carried him out of the small room. Shawn tried to kick out at his captor and in the attempt his leg hit on something solid and plastic. A quick glance down confirmed his suspicions. _Phone_. Something solid with a bore in the center tapped his forehead, and he looked up at Brossart. "Now. How're you feeling, now that you got him shot?"

"Just freaking peachy. Glorious. Absolutely thankful that 'meeting a psychopathic jackass' was on his bucket list." _Hit me. Come on. Hit me . . . I need that phone . . . _ Brossart drew the gun back and for a second Shawn thought his plan had failed, but as the other man spun back with the gun aimed for his head Shawn shifted so the impact sent him falling heavily onto Wayne. Just before he lost consciousness he felt his shoulder hit the phone and carry it to the ground with him.

#

Shawn groaned and stirred. _What the hell . . . _something seemed to be running down the side of his face. He sat up slowly, small lights dancing in front of his vision. There was a single light in the small room, next to a big piece of paper with some sort of drawing on it, and . . . was that Lassie in the corner?

Shawn remembered dimly that Lassiter might have been hurt and started to slide across the floor on his knees. Realizing his hands were somehow behind him, he painfully stepped through his arms to move them in front of him. He remembered having a broken rib; the more he thought about it, he remembered that he'd been stuck with Lassiter and that FBI Agent Morgan for the past two and a half days or so getting the crap tortured out of him. That made everything make sense. But Lassiter might be injured, and Shawn needed to check.

As he started across the floor his hand hit a small object. He looked down – a phone. That would be useful. Picking it up, he continued to make his way to Lassiter, starting to slip in some wet substance the closer he got to the unmoving detective.

"What?" Shawn looked down at his hands as he reached Lassiter's side, and realized that the copper smell in the room was that of blood. "Lassie! Lassie . . . Lassie . . . oh God . . ." In an already clouded mind, Shawn's panic wasn't helping. He looked down at the phone, flipped it open, and punched in the first number he remembered. As it rang, he noticed a bloody shirt wrapped around the cuffs he was wearing, and pressed it against what he thought might have been Lassiter's gunshot wound. _Gotta keep him from bleeding out . . . Don't let him bleed out . . ._ "Come on, Lassie . . . wake up . . . wake up . . ."

#

Gus looked down at his phone as it rang in the quiet observation room. Not recognizing the number, he flipped it open. "This is Burton Guster?"

He was answered by a familiar, albeit quite disoriented, voice. _Gus?_

"Shawn?!" The others turned and stared at him. "Shawn, where are you?"

_I . . . I don't know . . . I . . . I think it's . . . 192? I remember that number . . . something happened to Lassie . . . he's . . ._

Reid was already on his phone, calling Garcia for a trace on the number.

"Do you remember anything else about where you are?"

_I . . . we're on an . . . on an access road . . . somewhere . . . in woods . . . I . . . _

"What about the others?"

_Something's wrong with Lassie . . . I – I don't know about Morgan . . . _

"Got them!" Reid yelled, running out to pull Hotchner and Vick out of the interrogation room. As the observation room emptied, Juliet grabbed Gus' shoulder.

"Come on. Stay on the line with Shawn. Tell him we're coming."

Gus ran out after them, Shawn chattering disjointedly on the other end of the line. "Juliet, we're going to need ambulances."

"I'm on it." She pulled out her phone as they climbed into Vick's department sedan, following Rossi and Hotchner in the two FBI SUVs and followed by several squad cars, sirens blaring.

"Shawn, we're on our way. Stay with me."

_I think I . . . I mighta got hit really bad . . ._ Shawn's syntax level, lacking on a regular day, seemed to have fallen several more levels. _But Lassie . . . I think they . . . I think they shot him . . ._

"Where's he shot, Shawn? Where's Lassiter shot?" Juliet's head spun around to the back, and Vick nearly lost control of the car.

_He's . . . he's bleeding outta his stomach . . . Not sure where . . . _

"Put pressure on it, try to stop the bleeding. Don't move him. Keep him still. We're about fifteen away, Shawn, and we've got ambulances. Stay with me, okay?" Gus was worried that he couldn't hear an irate Lassiter in the background, which meant he was either unconscious, unable to speak, or dead – all of which were very displeasing scenarios.

_I'm trying, Gus . . . I just . . . He's gonna die 'cause I'm an idiot . . . _

"Shawn, don't even go there . . . He is _not_ going to die . . ."

_I think I . . . I think I got him shot . . ._

They hit the border of the forest, the combined police and FBI caravan hitting speeds over a hundred as they headed for the access road. Reid's phone rang. "Garcia?"

_I've got them, Reid! From where you are, you've got ten miles to the access road and then about thirteen for the cabin_.

"How do you . . ."

_The CIA lent me a heat seeking satellite and I have it pinned on them right now. It's a two-roomer, there's four people in the front room and I think two in the other._

"How did you get a heat seeking satellite from the CIA? . . .You didn't hack them, did you?"

There was a pause. _That doesn't matter._

"Rossi, Rossi – turn here!"

Rossi spun the SUV onto the access road, nearly flipping it in the process. The second SUV and Vick's car were right behind it.

_Okay, it's gonna be up on your left . . . how fast is he going?!_

"Rossi, it's going to be about thirteen miles up . . . er . . . probably ten by now." Reid glanced over at the speedometer as a tree branch nearly broke in the window, and wrapped his hand around the handle above the door. "I'll call you when we've got them, if we make it alive."

_Please do._ Garcia hung up as Rossi jerked the wheel, the SUV sliding sideways into the clearing with the cabin. The second SUV spun in next to them, and Vick's car went to the other side. A black, twelve-passenger van of some sort sat parked next to the small structure.

Rossi positioned himself behind the SUV's door, gun trained directly on the house. Across the clearing, Vick and Juliet took up a similar stance as Gus slid out of the door farthest away from the cabin.

"We're here, Shawn. We're coming in for you."

_I . . . I heard the sirens . . . Poppycock Corruthe . . . Corruthers . . . that sounded so much better . . . 'fore I said it._

When shots weren't immediately fired, Rossi and Hotchner headed for the front door, followed by the others. They reached it, Hotchner leaning on one side and Rossi going to the other.

"Stuart Brossart!" Hotchner yelled in.

_Oh . . . hi Morgan . . . you look . . . look pretty bad . . ._

Gus swallowed at the banging on the other end of the line. Finally a new voice came on.

_Who is this?_

"Agent Morgan?"

_Yeah, that'd be me. Who's on the . . ._

"Gus."

_Tell them that they're using Shawn as a shield. I'm gonna check on Lassiter._

Gus fumbled for the microphone.

"This is the FBI and the SBPD," Rossi yelled into the cabin. "We have you surrounded."

"Either you come out here or we go in there," Vick added. "You have until three."

"Guys, they're using Shawn as a shield,"

Vick glanced back at him and spoke into her mic. "Copy that, Guster."

"One . . ." Rossi started. "Two . . . three!"

Prentiss stepped up and slammed her foot into the door. It warped slightly but didn't open. "Damn it." She stepped back again and kicked the square center of the door, and it flew inward. As she spun to the side Hotchner stepped through with his gun ready, training it at the man standing behind a chair and very out-of-it looking psychic consultant.

"Hi guys," Shawn slurred, trying his best to sound cheery. The gun barrel dug into the back of his head as Brossart glared at the influx of federal agents and police.

"I _will_ shoot him."

"I don't doubt it." Hotchner glanced to the back of the room. A few black and whites had slipped around and cornered Brossart's three henchmen, who were busy surrendering their knives and couple guns.

"It'd be a very stupid thing to do," Rossi added.

Juliet's hand tensed as she noticed the blood-covered shirt wrapped around Shawn's hands, not to mention the amount of blood on the side of his head.

"Just put it down, Stuart," Vick said. "Put it down."

"I want her released." His hand shook.

"I can't do that."

"Do you want this to end this way, Stuart?" Reid inserted. "You know what's going to happen if you shoot him. Is this how you want it to end?"

There was a click as Brossart cocked the gun. It was now or never.

Shawn still had enough coherency to know what that sound meant and closed his eyes.

Juliet grit her teeth, aimed, and fired.

At the shot Reid jerked the trigger, wincing as the bullet left the chamber.

Vick, Hotchner, Prentiss and JJ fired a second after Reid.

Outside, Gus rocketed to his feet as the shots sounded and started towards the house, getting stopped by a cop halfway there.

Rossi started forward as the others lowered their weapons, looking down at the sprawled-out man on the floor. One shot had hit his upper arm, sending the gun flying out of his hand. One had entered each shoulder, and it looked as if two had been near-perfect head shots. Rossi sighed, putting his gun away.

"We're going to need a coroner."

Juliet hurried forward as Shawn started to stand. "Don't move, Shawn."

"Jules . . ." Shawn pointed at the door. "Lassie . . . Lassiter needs help . . ."

Vick was already kicking in the locked door and hurrying in, yelling for the paramedics over her mic. She hurried over to Lassiter's side, slipping in what appeared to be a pool of blood around the unresponsive detective. "Lassiter. Lassiter! _Carlton_!" She bent down and placed two of her fingers on the side of his neck – his pulse was weak and fast, but there. With a sigh of relief, she yelled back into her mic. "Requesting immediate medical assistance in the smaller room!"

Reid had been right behind her and had gone straight to Morgan. He had slid down, away from the detective, and was leaning heavily against the wall with his eyes closed.

"You okay?"

Morgan glanced up. "Yeah, kid. I'm fine."

Vick tossed Reid the keys for the cuffs as the first paramedic team hurried in. Morgan leaned forward so Reid could unlock them, wincing as his one arm was twisted.

"Where were you hit?" Morgan cocked his head slightly and had started to open his mouth to come back with a sarcastic _everywhere_ when Reid rephrased his question. "Where were you _shot_, Morgan?"

"How'd you know I . . ."

"We found your blood all over the room at the warehouse, and the splatter. . ."

Morgan cut him off. "My leg. It isn't that bad . . . fairly superficial from the looks of it."

The other team of paramedics came in, running over to Morgan. He tried to wave them off without using his hands. "Get out there to Shawn; he's worse than I am."

"Funny, he said the same thing about you," one of them said, taking Morgan's pulse. "The last team is with him now."

The other team lifted the stretcher with Lassiter up to full height and pushed it out of the room, Vick hurrying after them. Watching Juliet try and keep Shawn still while the paramedics with him tried to get him to stay on the backboard, Vick interrupted the proceedings. "Juliet, go with Carlton, I'm sure Gus will go with Shawn."

"Gus?" Shawn's half-drunk voice asked from the stretcher.

"He's right outside, Shawn." Juliet hurried after Lassiter with a worried look back. The paramedics were already halfway across the clearing to the ambulance as she sprinted after them.

"Juliet, where's Shawn?" Gus yelled, running to meet her. "How's Lassiter?"

" Shawn's in the house. Go on!" She jumped into the back of the ambulance as the paramedics closed the doors. Gus ran into the house, jumping to avoid the stretcher with Morgan.

"I don't need all this," Morgan was saying as a medic tried to put him on oxygen. "I got shot in the leg, it isn't like —"

"Your body is lacking all its essential nutrients," Reid argued. "It's just all—"

"Don't worry, I've been breathing the past three days."

Reid crossed his arms. "And how many times have you been shot?"

"The same amount of times you have, genius, plus one."

Right behind them was the stretcher with Shawn. Gus half leaned over him.

"Hi . . . hi Gus . . ." Shawn managed a weak smile.

"Don't you ever do this to me again, Shawn. I _will_ kill you."

"Stand in . . . stand in line, buddy."

Hotchner joined Rossi in the clearing as forensics began to process the house. The ambulances with the remaining two rolled out. Rossi glanced over.

"Slight overkill, don't you think?"

Hotchner shrugged. "I think that six people anticipated the same thing."

Rossi nodded. "Who do you think got the head shots?" Hotchner looked over at him, slightly confused. "There were two entrance wounds in his forehead."

"My guesses would be Reid, the Chief, or Detective O'Hara," Hotchner answered, looking back down at the retreating ambulances.

"Speaking of Reid . . . JJ, will you call Garcia?"

JJ turned from where she was talking to one of the forensics techs. "That's right, Reid was supposed to call Garcia when we found them." She picked up her phone and dialed Garcia's number.

"There's nothing else we can do here." Hotchner started towards one of the SUVs, pulling his Kevlar off as he walked. "Let's get to the hospital."

***

Hopefully I'll update this in honor of the epicness that should be Friday's Psych episode . . . which I will sadly miss due to another obligation. :( We shall see.


	16. Chapter 15: At Day's End

OMG, I am in absolute love with the fall finale of _Psych_. It's easily my new favorite episode.

I promise that _Whoever Fights Zombies_ won't take away from this story. Also, I have a great idea for either another crossover or a sequel to this one, just to tie things back up . . . anyone interested? It wouldn't be getting written for a while anyway.

Reviewers: Thanks!

Lurkers: Please make me feel loved???

I own nothing, including the doctors. They are all actually real people from a real hospital . . . of sorts. If you include veterinary hospitals . . .

*****

**Chapter 15: Day's End**

Gus walked through the OR doors, spying Reid and Juliet sitting on the far end of the waiting room. He sank down into the hard plastic chair on Reid's other side, hardly receiving acknowledgement from either of the other two. They were silent for a few minutes, ignoring the hustle around them.

"Juliet. How's Lassiter?" Gus finally spoke. Juliet looked up from the floor.

"They rushed him into surgery. I don't know, Gus. It looked really bad." She shook her head. "What did they say about Shawn and Agent Morgan?"

"They were taking Shawn down to get some neurological tests done. They think he either has a really bad concussion or, at the worst, a brain injury. And there's a rib they're worrying about, but it's barely fractured and not even broken all the way through."

"All that blood was Lassiter's?"

"I think so. Agent Reid?"

Reid shrugged. "They took Morgan in to get the bullet out, but apart from that . . . he had a couple of broken bones that just need set. They apparently broke his one hand, but we interrupted them before they could continue."

"Did Shawn say _anything _about how Lassiter got shot?" Juliet looked over at Gus hopefully.

Gus paused. "He didn't."

Reid shook his head. "Apart from complaining that they were wasting time with him, Morgan didn't say anything either."

The doors slid open and Henry rushed in. Spotting Gus, he hurried over.

"Where is he?"

"They took him down to neurology." Gus got up and moved him closer to the entrance.

Henry went pale. "Why neurology? What happened?"

"They're running some tests to determine if he just has a severe concussion or if a brain injury. That's it."

"Oh, 'that's it.' Just a severe concussion or a brain injury. _That_ isn't too bad. We all may as well go home then."

"Mr. Spencer, really. Just . . . he's fine. Out of the three of them, he's fairly well off."

Henry glanced at the other two and then back at Gus. "How's Carlton?"

Gus swallowed. "Not good."

Henry cursed and rubbed his head. "Damn it. What happened?"

"I think he got shot in the abdomen. He's in surgery right now."

"Gut shot? That isn't good." Henry bit his lip. "Look, if you want to go home, I'll be here."

Gus shook his head. "No. Did you call Shawn's mom?"

"Yeah. She was staying at the house last night – she should be a few minutes behind me."

The doors slid open again and the rest of the BAU team walked in, heading for Reid. He met them and repeated Morgan's prognosis. They all breathed a sigh of relief.

"How's Detective Lassiter?" Hotchner asked, once assured that his agent was going to suffer little permanent damage.

"In surgery. I don't know any more than that. Shawn is getting some tests done."

"Garcia should be on the jet out to here by now," JJ relayed. "Were you still picking her up, Prentiss?"

"I was going to, yes."

"You understand that Morgan's going to –"

"I told her that." JJ shrugged. "You know Garcia."

Reid nodded as the doors slid open once again, admitting an older woman carrying a pineapple sporting a green bow. She hurried over once she'd spotted Gus and Henry.

"Henry, Gus. Have we heard anything?"

For what felt like the seventh time, Gus explained what was going on with Shawn. Madeleine visibly relaxed.

"I was so afraid it would be much worse."

"That . . . that's pretty bad." Henry crossed his arms.

"For the last twenty four hours I thought he was _dead_, Henry. Comparatively, that _is_ good." Madeleine caught sight of Juliet sitting alone near the doors that led further into the hospital. "Oh dear. What . . ."

"She's here for Lassiter," Gus answered.

Madeleine nodded. "I'd almost forgotten he was with Shawn. Henry, hold this." She pressed the pineapple against her ex-husband's chest and hurried over to sit next to Juliet.

"What in hell?" Henry looked down at the large fruit. "She knows he won't be able to eat this for at _least_ another week . . ."

Gus grabbed it. "I'll hang on to this, okay?"

A nurse came to the door, and those who hadn't been standing shot to their feet. "Who is here for . . ." she looked down at her file. "Agent Derek Morgan?"

Hotchner headed over, waving to the rest of the team to sit down. "How is he?"

"He's fine. He's still out right now, but he's been moved to C wing, room 576. There shouldn't be any permanent damage to his leg – the bullet wound was fairly superficial – but he'll probably require physical therapy on his left hand and may face some future problems with mobility."

"Thank you." She smiled and left and Hotchner relayed the news to the others. Reid and Prentiss immediately took off for the elevator.

"We should get back to neurology," Gus said, glancing back at Juliet. She was talking quietly to Madeleine and struggling to keep from looking too concerned. He walked over and sat down on Juliet's other side. "Juliet, I'm going to go and wait to find out about Shawn. As soon as I know anything, I'll come back and wait for Lassiter with you. Okay?"

Juliet nodded. "You don't need to do that."

"I know."

She paused. "Thanks, Gus."

Madeleine and Gus got up and they hurried to the elevator. On the seventh floor Shawn's parents followed Gus into the neurology waiting room. Almost immediately, the receptionist waved Gus over.

"Mr. Guster?"

"Yeah. How is he?"

"Mr. Spencer is a room right now. One of the doctors is waiting to speak to someone about his condition."

Gus' stomach suddenly leapt and became lodged in his throat. "'Condition?'"

"He'll better be able to explain it. It's room 719."

Gus waved back to the other two and headed for the hallway. Once he'd relayed the receptionist's information to Henry and Madeleine, the duo took off at a sprint down the hallway, stopping abruptly at the right room. A man in a lab coat was standing in the doorway, blocking their access. Henry skimmed his nametag – _Dr. Robert Thompson_.

"I assume you're here for Mr. Spencer?"

"Yeah, yeah, Dr. Thompson," Henry said, waving his hand. "Parents. Now go on."

The doctor eyed Gus suspiciously as he reached them. "Family?"

"Yeah. It's a long story."

"Mr. Spencer is still fairly disoriented," Thompson started to explain while still eyeing Gus. "He received at least three blows to the head, and we were fortunate that no intercranial bleeding or spinal injuries occurred. We're fairly confident that no brain death occurred – but we'll need to rerun the tests in a couple of days." He glanced back into the room. "We also need to keep him for at least a week of observation, if not longer."

"Can we see him?" Madeleine asked, taking the pineapple back. The doctor nodded.

"He's sedated right now. It was the only way we could run most of the tests." At Henry's look he explained. "He kept telling us that we should be helping a 'Lassie' and trying to get off the stretcher. Luckily we kept him from climbing out of the MRI."

"Look," Henry said. "I don't want to seem insensitive or anything, but could you move so we can see our son?"

The doctor stepped to the side, and the trio walked in. Shawn shifted his head slightly towards them. "Mom?"

"Hey, goose," she said as she sat next to the bed, setting the pineapple down on the table. Henry stood at the bottom of the bed, arms crossed. Leaning forward, Madeleine patted Shawn's hand. "How are you feeling?"

"Mmm . . ." He paused. Gus eyed the bandage wrapped around the side of Shawn's head. _That must be where all the blood was coming from when the paramedics had been rolling him out._ "Head hurts."

"I know."

"Gus?"

"Right here, Shawn."

"You s'ok?"

"Yes."

"'ow's Lassie?"

"We haven't heard anything."

"Morgan?"

"He's out of surgery. He'll be fine."

"Jules?"

"She's waiting for Lassiter."

"Mmm." Shawn closed his eyes. "'kay. Som'on go wif her."

"Is he allowed to sleep?" Henry cut in. Madeleine glared at him.

"Yes. It's fine."

"Stop worryin', Dad. S'ok. Doc said so."

Gus watched as Shawn slipped off and turned slightly towards Henry. "If anything happens . . ."

"I'll send Henry down to let you know," Madeleine answered for him.

With a worried nod, Gus turned and started back towards the waiting room.

#

_I hate hospitals._

_They smell too . . . clean._

_I didn't even need all this. I was just shot in the _leg_. It isn't like I got shot in the gut, like Lassiter, or even the chest like when G—_

_God, Garcia. Penelope _must_ be freaking out. I need to . . ._ He reached for the bedside table. _Damn it . . . my phone must be with the rest of my stuff . . . which isn't here . . . damn it . . . _He started to reach for the hospital phone, wondering if it had _very_ long distance capabilities . . .

"You look better."

Morgan looked over at the door. Reid was leaning against the doorjamb where Morgan swore he _hadn't_ been not too long ago.

"I feel better."

"That's the pain meds speaking." Reid walked in and sank down into a chair. "Just wait until they wear off."

"Where're the others?"

"Getting dinner. They'll be back soon."

"Food must be nice." Morgan glared at his IV. "Have you heard anything about Lassiter?"

Reid shook his head. "They're still waiting." Morgan swore and leaned back against the bed. "What happened?"

Morgan paused. "The easiest way . . . yeah. We didn't do what he wanted."

"So he shot Detective Lassiter?"

He attempted a shrug, not particularly wanting to discuss that. "That's the short answer. How's . . . how's Shawn?"

"I haven't heard anything, but he was down getting some tests done."

"Has he said what he remembers?"

"I don't _know_, Morgan."

"You don't need to get defensive."

"I'm not getting defensive!"

Morgan held up his IV-ed hand, almost instantly sorry he'd just snapped. "Okay. You aren't."

Reid sighed. "I'm sorry, Morgan. It's just . . ."

"I was asking you about stuff you didn't know." He looked over at the door. "Must be a line."

"They left over a half-hour ago."

"You aren't eating?"

"I went for some pretzels." Reid held up the bag. Morgan groaned.

"You're cruel."

"I know." Reid smiled. Morgan leaned back against the bed and closed his eyes. _It's gotta be revenge for the jello back when he was in for anthrax. _"Morgan?"

"Yeah, kid."

"Do you need to talk?" He half-opened his eyes. Reid had put the offending pretzels away and was leaning forward on his knees. Morgan sighed. "No?"

"I'll get through."

"Just . . . let me know, okay?"

"Look who's up and lucid!" Morgan looked up at the door again as JJ walked through, followed by Hotchner and Rossi.

"What took you guys so long?" Reid asked. Hotchner actually grinned.

"Rossi wanted to get dinner and bring it back up, but JJ and I thought that, since one of the four people in this room couldn't eat, that would be cruel." He directed his gaze to Morgan. "How are you feeling?"

"Better."

"As in, you've felt better?" Rossi leaned against the wall.

"Both." Morgan scanned them. "Where's Prentiss?"

JJ sat down on the other side of the bed. "Garcia was about an hour away. Emily is picking her up at the airport, so she went over there to wait."

Morgan rolled his eyes. "Did you tell her that wasn't necessary?"

"Of course I did. But you know Garcia."

Morgan nodded. "While you were wandering around the hospital, did you hear anything about the other two?"

Rossi shook his head. "Nothing. As far as I know, Detective Lassiter's still in surgery."

"Nothing about Shawn, either."

"Agent Morgan!" A blonde woman in a white lab coat walked in, skimming over a manila file. "Nice to hear that you're finally fully awake. I'm Doctor Harris, and I just came in to see if you were up to hearing about your condition."

"May as well." Morgan shrugged, despite his desire to not remember the circumstances around his condition right then.

"Do you mind if they stay, or would you like me to kick them out?"

He glanced around. "They'll all find out sooner or later, so just go ahead."

"Well . . ." She looked down at the file. "The bullet entered your leg on the side and lodged in the back of your calf, in the muscle. Luckily for us, that meant that it didn't hit bone and was easier to repair. You have some intense burns on your arms and torso –" Morgan winced and nodded, something none of the profilers missed. "—but those should go away over time. And about your hand . . ."

"What about it?" Morgan dimly remembered going through some x-rays before they took him on into surgery to dig out the bullet.

"The prognosis is better than we originally thought. The actual breaking was mostly in your phalanges and metacarpals –"

"Fingers and hand," Reid added. Morgan glared at him.

"I know _that_, Reid."

"—and was overall fairly clean. We're going to run some more tests later today to see if any nerve damage occurred, and if it didn't, you should regain almost full mobility in your hand with physical therapy.

"You do have a couple of broken ribs on your left side. But they're only minor fractures. Oh, and there was a small hairline fracture in your sternum. And . . . except for the fairly widespread bruising, that's it." She closed the file. "Do you have any questions?"

"That seemed fairly straightforward. Anything else?"

"No, that should do it. I'll be sending up the orthopedist and the physical therapist later today to talk to you."  
"Okay. Thanks."

Dr. Harris left, and Morgan leaned his head back against the bed.

"You know you're going to have to give a statement." Rossi's voice finally echoed in the quiet room.

"Yeah . . ." Morgan sighed, recognizing the question behind Rossi's statement. "Why don't you just out and _say_ that you want to know what happened?"

"We really don't need to –" Reid started.

"Are you up for it?"

Morgan closed his eyes in answer to Hotchner's query. Did he really want to talk about it? What was he supposed to say? _Yeah, I got shot for trying to rush a sadist with a gun and an injured detective handcuffed to my back. Yeah, they moved us because, well, I don't know. And Lassiter got shot because Shawn, who isn't really a psychic in the first place, was trying to help him and then smarted off to a guy in a psychotic break. _That sounded like a good idea, albeit absolutely irreconcilable. For one, there was the whole legal aspect of Shawn defrauding both the police and (now) a federal agency . . . but there was also the fact that Shawn wasn't really causing any harm, and did seem to do a legit job. And then, when one paired that with Lassiter getting shot and Shawn panicking . . . and not being there to be the calm head . . .

"He asked for a volunteer," Morgan finally said, examining the inside of his eyelids carefully. He could almost hear Brossart's voice in the back of his mind. "After JJ's conference, which he listened to on the radio down in that room. None of us said anything, so he went after Shawn first."

"How were you confined?" Hotchner cut in. Morgan felt like his voice was a mile away. He swallowed heavily.

"We were handcuffed – both behind our back and to each other."

"Go on," JJ said softly, half-glaring at Rossi. _He doesn't need to do this yet. . ._

"Lassiter and I tried to get switched with him. When they were getting Shawn up I tried to . . ." Morgan sighed. _Profiler mode. Report mode. Come on, Derek. _ "It doesn't matter what I tried to do. We saw an opportunity for Shawn to run for it, and took it."

"So he ran?"

"Yeah. Lassiter and I wanted to buy him time to get out, so we got on our feet and tried to go after Brossart."

"So he shot you." Rossi again.

"Yeah."

"Why did they move you?" Reid asked. Morgan inwardly thanked him for letting him skip the torture.

"I'm not sure."

"Why not?"

"I wasn't exactly _conscious_ when they came in, Rossi." Morgan's breath hitched as he forced himself away from _why _he'd been unconscious. "He somehow knew – I don't know if he listened to us or just got it from our behavior, which would be more likely – that Lassiter and I were trying to focus the brunt of it on us and protect Shawn. So when he was moving us he kept us from running by keeping him at gunpoint and out of sight."

"What happened once you were in the cabin?" Hotchner cut in.

"He took us directly to that second room and left us there for a while. When he came back, he gave us a blueprint of the women's prison where his sister is and told us to give him a plan to break her out. We refused, and he pulled Lassiter out to use as leverage.

"We stalled for time by coming up with a plan that would need far more information to pull off, and he sent Lassiter back in."

"How was Lassiter shot?"

Morgan swallowed, knowing fully that this had been coming up and yet really wishing it hadn't. "Shawn had managed to step through his cuffs and was using his one shirt to stop Lassiter's bleeding."

"So he was bleeding before he was shot?"

"Yeah. He said something about knives, and Shawn said something about papercuts, but –"

"Sounds like lingchi."

"Ling-what?"

"Lingchi. 'Slow slicing.' The Chinese started it in a much more violent form and used it for regicides and traitors. Only in the original lingchi –" Reid caught the glare he was receiving from Hotchner and immediately felt guilty. "Sorry, Morgan."

Morgan shook his head. "Either way, Brossart noticed the change and . . ." He trailed off. "I'm . . . I'm not sure I can . . ."

"It's okay." Morgan opened his eyes as Rossi shook his head. "We don't want to push you."

"I'm going to see if I can find out about the other two for you." JJ stood, patted Morgan's arm, and left.

"You guys don't need to stay here. I'm fine. You should start wrapping up the case." In all honesty, Morgan didn't really want them to leave, but he didn't want the questions and the obsessing over that would happen if they stayed. Anyway, enough of that would happen when Garcia got here. Inwardly, Morgan groaned. If there was _ever_ a time he _didn't_ want to see Garcia, it was right then.

"We need to interview the guys from the cabin," Hotchner's statement was low enough that Morgan knew he shouldn't have heard it, but did anyway.

"That would be a good idea." Rossi and Hotchner half-turned back to the bed.

"Go on." Morgan waived his non-broken hand towards the door. "Wrap it up."

"We'll see you in the morning."

"Hey, Hotch." Hotchner turned as he was walking out the door. "Try talking to the guy named Allen. He might be open to a deal."

"Will do."

Morgan waited until they'd left to look over at Reid. He was examining a map of the hospital as if it were one of the most interesting things he'd seen all day.

"You don't need to stay either, Reid. You probably need your sleep."

"Is that your subtle way of kicking me out?"

"Only if you don't want to sit in uncomfortable hospital chairs."

Reid reached over for the remote. "This chair isn't too bad, though. Wonder how the cable is?"

Morgan rolled his eyes and leaned back against the bed as Reid started flipping through channels. Morgan stopped him.

"Hey, hey, go back."Reid flipped back. "This is good."

"What is it?"

"You've never seen _Die Hard_?" Morgan sat back again as Reid shook his head, confused. "This is staying on."

"But I don't even –"

"Hey, when you were in the hospital I sat there and watched Sci-Fi with you for hours." Morgan grinned as Reid glared at him. "Come on, kid. Who's on the IV this time? You never know, you might like good old Bruce Willis."

Reid shrugged and re-focused on the TV as Morgan closed his eyes. He really hadn't cared if Reid _had_ put it on the Science Channel. Noise, right now, was noise.

#

Juliet and Gus looked up as the doors opened, admitting Chief Vick and a few black and whites into the operating room waiting area. She sent them off to Shawn and Morgan's rooms after finding out the numbers, and walked towards the other two.

"Any word on Lassiter?"

"Nothing yet." Juliet shook her head with a sigh.

Vick looked down at her watch. It had been over five hours since they'd rescued the trio, and she'd expected _something_ by now. "It must have been worse than we thought. What about the other two?"

"Agent Morgan's fine. Shawn should be fine."

"Detective O'Hara?" Juliet spun towards the OR doors to the scrub-clad nurse.

"Yes?"

"I need to talk to you about Detective Lassiter."


	17. Chapter 16: Concussions Suck

Only about 4 chapters and an epilogue left, guys!!! _ Wow . . .

vampire-act: I would like to think it's going to be far more epic.

UnLove: *evil chuckle* You are about to find out.

animalluvr: Been meaning to update before now, but you know how that whole college thing works.

Lurkers: :(

As usual, I don't own the epicness.

**Chapter 16: Note to Self: Write Commercial – Concussions Suck.**

Vick stormed down the hallway towards the ICU, Juliet and Gus struggling to keep up with her. As the receptionist tried to stop her she flashed her badge and hurried past without stopping. At ICU 5, she was stopped by a slender, dark-haired doctor.

"Ma'am, I –"

"I'm sorry, I have an injured detective in there." Vick pointed into the room. The doctor sighed.

"I know, ma'am, but –"

"Do _not_ call me ma'am."

"Um . . . okay . . . well . . . I'm Doctor Lochstoer, the general trauma surgeon here. I worked on Detective Lassiter."

"How is he?" Juliet and Gus finally caught up to her.

"The bullet entered his abdomen on the right side. It nicked his stomach and ended up lodged in his large intestine. When he was brought in he was in stage four hypovolemic shock due to blood loss from the wound –"

"How _is_ he?" Vick repeated impatiently. Lochstoer sighed.

"He's comatose." Lochstoer held up her hand. "I can get a neurologist to explain it if you insist, but on the GCS – Glasgow Coma Scale – he's a 6. That's _good_. Comatose is considered an 8. That means there is a greater chance of recovery. By greater, I mean about a fifty-fifty chance as opposed to something like a twenty-eighty chance. He's very lucky – we've had much better off gunshot patients come in who haven't done nearly as well as he has. So far, he is responding well to stimulus, but is still on a BiPAP."

"BiPAP?"

"It's an air pressure machine that assists in breathing. It's better than intubation, but that may come. We're hopeful for a full recovery.

"However, you need to realize that, even _if_ he does make a full recovery . . . he _may_ never return to police work."

The trio fell silent.

"Can we go in?" Vick asked, far softer this time. Lochstoer nodded and stepped to the side. They hurried in.

Lassiter lay in the hospital bed, eyes closed. The familiar bedside monitor was mounted next to the bed. A mask covered the lower part of his face, a tube running from it to a cart underneath the IV drip. He was paler than Vick or Juliet remembered, hinting that there was even more intense blood loss than either had suspected. A large white bandage was wrapped around his arm, covering the earlier gunshot wound. Lochstoer had stepped in behind them as Gus managed to catch his breath.

"Is there anything else you need to know?"

"How much blood did he lose?"

"Around forty percent."

That explained it, then. With another worried look over her detective, Vick directed her gaze to Juliet. "We'll keep a black and white posted out here. I need to go back and do my report." She turned to leave. "O'Hara?"

"Yes?"

"Get some sleep."

#

"Is he awake?"

"He's been like that for a while."

"_You're_ watching _Die Hard?_"

"He wanted it on."

"I'm listening to you guys argue." Morgan opened his eyes. Garcia, her pink shirt the brightest thing he'd seen in a while, hurried over and inspected him before wrapping him in a hug.

"I'm going to kill you," she scolded, sitting down. "First, you get yourself blown up, and then you get yourself thrown out a window, and then you get kidnapped." She waved her finger at him. "I swear I'm going to implant a GPS monitor in every single one of you."

"Including Hotch?"

"Yes, including Hotch. He has to sleep sometime!" She looked over at Reid, eyes wide. "Wait . . . what if he _doesn't_ sleep?"

"I think he does."

"But really . . . what if he's just like . . . _inhuman_ like that?"

Morgan allowed himself a small laugh. "Baby girl, I'm fine."

"Fine?! You're in the _hospital_!" Garcia attempted her 'mad' face. "I almost killed Kevin when they told me you were missing!"

"I'll have to apologize to him." He redirected his eyes to Prentiss. "Hey, Prentiss."

"Good morning, sunshine." She leaned on the end of the bed. "How're you feeling?"

"Better than I was earlier."

"Stop getting him to change the subject!" Garcia put her hands on her hips. "Emily!"

"Sorry, Garcia." Prentiss made a face as Garcia turned back to Morgan.

"So where do you want to implant this GPS chip, Garcia?" Morgan asked impishly.

"I haven't decided yet, gorgeous. But I'm thinking about it." She rubbed her hands together. "Besides, I have so many options."

"Oh, God." Prentiss rolled her eyes.

#

Shawn awoke to one of the absolute worst migraines in history. There had to be a couple hundred little somethings banging three drum sets each rolling around in his head with a couple thousand screeching cats as the main attraction. With a low groan, he cracked his eyes to see Gus sprawled in a chair against a pale white wall. He frowned. For one, his walls were _not_ that color._ And why would Gus be in my room?! That's just creepy . . ._

He opened his eyes the rest of the way, scanning the room. _Hospital. That explains it._ That just left the question of _why_ he was in the hospital in the first place. Oh well. They weren't going to keep him here. _Now where are my clothes . . .?_

_Shit. Something happened to Lassie. I need to find Lassie. What . . . he was shot . . . he better be in this hospital . . . not . . . _

Shawn carefully – making sure not to wake Gus or his mother, who was apparently sleeping in one of the other chairs – sat up and swung his feet towards the floor. Pain flared up in the side of his chest and shot through his head, upping the grand total of somethings to about a thousand. Gasping – _who would think that simply _moving_ could hurt this much?! _– he struggled to his feet.

No sooner had he stood then an alarm rang through the room. Madeleine and Gus were both startled awake as a nurse rushed in.

"Mr. Spencer," she chided, gently pushing him back down. The alarm stopped. "You aren't supposed to get out of bed."

"Why not?" Shawn begrudgingly let her help him back fully onto the bed. After all, being dizzy sucked.

"Because you're coming out of a severe concussion." She busily tucked the sheets back around him. "And you're a fall risk because you're unsteady. And if you hit your head again, there probably _will_ be brain damage."

"Like the Pink Floyd song?"

"Worse. Now stay put, and hit the call button if you need anything." She hurried back out.

"Did you put an alarm on my _bed_?" Shawn asked, looking back and forth between Gus and Madeleine.

"They did it to keep you confined, goose." Madeleine rubbed the back of her neck. "They had you sedated yesterday."

Shawn dimly remembered being in a continual state of off-again-on-again awareness for what felt like an eternity.

"Sedated? _That's _what that was?"

"Yeah." Gus sat back, stretching.

Shawn sat back against the bed. There had to be a reason he was here. And apparently with some sort of head injury. _Hope it wasn't my bike or Dad might have it impounded again_. After a few minutes of thinking (which only aggravated the drummers, making them all run out and buy an extra drum set) Shawn sat straight up before wincing and collapsing back.

"What is it?" Madeleine was instantly at his side.

"Lassiter – Where's Lassiter?"

He watched as his mother and Gus exchanged some sort of weird inside look.

"Now isn't the best time, Shawn," Gus said slowly.

"What do you mean? He isn't . . . he's okay, right?" There was a quick beep from the bedside monitor as his vitals jumped.

"Shawn, you need to stay calm." Madeleine sank back onto the bed.

"I need to know how Lassiter is," Shawn repeated stubbornly. "He _is_ okay, right?"

Madeleine scanned the quick increase in his heart rate and blood pressure, and sighed heavily. "Shawn, he should be . . . he may be all right."

"What do you mean by 'may?'" Shawn glanced wildly from his mother to Gus.

"I really don't think we should be—"

"Gus, he should know."

"Once you tell him he's out of here. You know that."

"If we don't tell him, he's going to run over this entire hospital until he finds out."

"If we do tell him, he's going to run over this entire hospital until he finds _him_."

"I'm sitting right here, guys. Just _tell me_!"

"Shawn . . . Lassiter isn't . . . isn't doing well." Madeleine sighed. "He's in a coma."

Shawn tried to struggle to his feet again. Madeleine gently pushed him back down.

"I need to see him."

"You need to worry about yourself right now. Lassiter's in good hands."

Shawn bit his lip. It wasn't about that. "Do they know if he's going to wake up?"

"They hope so. Right now, they aren't sure what exactly to expect."

"Do you remember anything?"

Shawn thought. What exactly did he remember? He remembered waking up in a basement, handcuffed to Lassiter and Morgan . . . stuff he decided to skip over . . . then getting taken to a cabin and being told to break into a prison . . . then . . . something . . . a gunshot, maybe? Then there were just flashes – Lassiter on the ground, a hard wooden floor, no Morgan, a thick, sticky substance on the floor around the uncharacteristically quiet detective. . . . connecting the dots in a moment of sheer guilt-ridden terror that somehow, although he couldn't tell you how, if he'd finally gotten someone hurt. "I . . . I'm not sure." Shawn looked past Madeleine and out the window. "But I think . . . I think it was my fault."

"Do you know how it was your fault?" Madeline scanned her son worriedly. "Or is that just speculation?"

"I'm not sure. I really don't remember much right now. I remember that we were working a case, and that the Chief called in the FBI. And then, we were at the office, and you left, and there was a guy . . . then waking up in some basement with Lassie and Agent Morgan, and then just . . ." Shawn shook his head. "I'm not sure I can . . ."

"It's okay, Shawn," Gus said as he came back over to the hospital bed. "I'm sure you didn't actually get Lassiter shot." Remembering Shawn's phone call right after Lassiter had been shot Gus thought it was highly likely that had been Shawn's fault, or at least he had something to do with it, whether directly or indirectly. Gus hoped that wasn't the case, but right now it was the word of an amnesic police consultant against three criminals, a comatose detective, and a fairly conscious and aware FBI agent. Hopefully that would be enough to guarantee that Shawn would not face charges. Maybe it was selfish to be concerned about the freedom of one's best friend over a potentially dying police detective, but this was Shawn. Gus swallowed. "Or at least I don't think anyone will hold it against you - even Lassiter."

"Wait . . . Lassiter got shot?" Shawn tried to struggle to his feet as Madeleine pushed him back down. "Where is he? How is he?" Gus and Madeleine shared a look. Shawn groaned. "I already knew that, didn't I?"

"That's just the concussion, goose." Madeleine patted his hand gently.

"Can you guys . . ." Shawn swallowed heavily, looking out the window past Madeleine. _First the drummers, then Lassiter, and now a damned concussion . . ._ "Can you guys give me some time?"

"Of course. We'll go find out what happened to your father." Madeleine's look pulled Gus to his feet, and her hand guided him out the door. Once outside with the door closed, Gus shook her off.

"We can't leave him alone," he argued. "Not in the state he's in." Gus glanced back through the window. Shawn caught him and gave him a weak smile and thumbs-up.

"Gus, this isn't something you can fix for him," Madeleine said. "There's nothing we can do. And there's nothing wrong with getting breakfast and giving him space." She started down the hallway. "And they'll page us if anything happens."

With a heavy sigh, Gus glanced back at Shawn – who was now staring dejectedly out the window – and followed her down the hallway.

#

Morgan was partially grateful for silence. It had been a day since he'd woken up in the hospital, and since Garcia had arrived he hadn't had any sort of peace and quiet. He had just sent her to get breakfast and was trying to figure out a way to get out of the damn hospital bed with an injured leg and hand, and escape without alerting half the hospital.

While he was musing, Garcia came back. "You really aren't missing much," she assured him as she sat down. "Hospital food usually isn't good, and this is no exception."

"You willing to roll me somewhere?" Morgan asked.

"Absolutely. Where do you want to go?"

"Neurology. I need to visit someone."

Garcia hurried out to get one of the nurses and they returned with a wheelchair. Between the two of them, they helped him into the chair and fixed the IV to the back. "Now don't over-exert yourself, Agent Morgan," the nurse admonished. "We wouldn't want you to hurt yourself any more."

"I promise I'll come back in one piece," Morgan said with a grin. "Neurology is the fifth floor, right?"

"It is. They said you may be trying to visit Mr. Spencer sometime today. He's in Room 519."

"Thanks." Garcia pushed him out of the room and towards the elevator.

"You heard anything more about Lassiter?" Morgan asked as the elevator doors closed.

"As far as I know, he's the same as he was last night." The elevator dinged and Garcia will now. Following the room signs they found room 519 and looked in. Shawn was looking out the window aimlessly and hardly moved as they entered the room.

"Shawn," Morgan said as Garcia positioned him beside the bed so his leg could stay stretched out. "How're you doing?"

"Fine," Shawn answered, not moving his eyes from the window.

"You sure? You don't look 'fine.'"

He finally looked over from the window and up at Garcia. "Who's this?"

"Shawn, this is Penelope Garcia, the part of the team that you haven't met yet. Garcia, this is Shawn Spencer."

"Nice to meet you," Garcia said. Shawn nodded.

"Baby girl, could you leave us alone for a few minutes?" Garcia nodded and patted Morgan's shoulder.

"I'll be right outside." After she left, Morgan leaned slightly forward. Shawn looked away, trying to avoid his eyes.

"What?" Shawn asked after a long period of silence.

"What's going on, Shawn?"

"What do you mean what's going on? I'm lying in a hospital bed with a severe concussion and people keep asking me what happened to Lassiter and I have to tell them that I can't remember even though I feel like I had something to do with it." Shawn sighed.

"So you don't remember it at all?"

"No, Morgan, I don't remember anything," Shawn snapped. "I have flashes. I remember being told to break into a damned prison, and then Lassiter being all cut up, and that's _it_. I might remember a gunshot. Then, there's flashes of blood, and Lassiter, and people with guns . . . that's _all_ . . . but I feel like I had something to do with it, and everyone expects me to remember, and all I know is that there's all these drummers banging around in my head and they _won't stop_!" Morgan frowned. He didn't know if he should tell Shawn what he remembered or let him figure it out himself. Shawn's next comment broke him out of his thoughts. "But I remember that I told you."

"That you aren't what you say you are?"

"Yeah. And now, I can't expect you to keep this secret. I mean, after all, it is technically illegal, and as a federal agent you're all-but required to turn me in." Shawn directed his gaze to his IV feed. "Just . . . I don't want . . . I don't want this to fall back on Gus."

"Shawn, I haven't even decided what I'm going to do about that." Shawn looked up at him, surprised. "In my mind, you aren't doing anything wrong and half the time you're actually helping. But I'm still _obliged_ to report you." Morgan placed heavy emphasis on the 'obliged.' "But trust me, there have been a number of things I've been _obliged_ to do and haven't done."

"They were probably all on fudging reports or slipping them to Reid."

Morgan shrugged. "For the most part." Shawn looked back out the window with a heavy sigh. "A couple of psychological appointments I inadvertently forgot about are lumped in there, but apart from that . . ."

Shawn chuckled. "Maybe they'll put me in the women's prison. I could probably break out."

Morgan grinned. "You might be able to."

"Is there any way you can convince them to let me out of this room?"

"Going to see him is _not_ going to do any good."

"You don't know that."

Morgan sighed. "Why can't you just get up and leave?"

"My bed is rigged."

"What?"

"They strapped an alarm to my bed so that if I stand up, the alarm goes off." Morgan looked away, trying to stifle a laugh. "It isn't funny, Morgan! I can't do anything!"

"Do you really want to go see Lassiter?"

"Yes! But I can't leave my room!"

"I'll see what I can do." He waved to Garcia. "Trust me. Between us, we can do just about anything."

#

Vick looked up from the file she was reading as Dr. Lochstoer returned with a male doctor she hadn't seen. Lochstoer noticed her and stopped.

"Chief Vick, this is Dr. Thompson. He's the head neurologist here. We're just here to run some tests."

"Oh. Go on, then." Vick returned to her file, but didn't miss the look the two doctors exchanged. "Don't worry about me, I'd read about it in his medical report later anyway."

She returned her attention to the file, ignoring whatever they were doing to her detective until Lochstoer's voice pulled her back.

"Rob, do that again?"

Vick's head shot up as he did something to Lassiter's foot – it was blocked by his body, so she didn't see what. They exchanged another look, and Vick was on her feet. "What's wrong?!"

"Nothing yet," Thompson said slowly. "Claire, test his hand."

Vick watched as Lochstoer gently applied pressure to Lassiter's finger, under the nail, and he responded by trying to pull away. Lochstoer looked up at Thompson.

"What does that mean?" Vick asked quietly, already having figured it out but deciding she needed to hear it.

"It means we need to get him back down to x-ray, maybe MRI," Thompson answered. "Claire . . ."

Vick stood still as they managed to shift Lassiter onto a gurney and wheel him away. A few minutes later, an orderly and someone she didn't recognize were standing in the door with two wheelchairs. She looked over. "Agent Morgan – Spencer, I thought you were –"

Shawn pointed wordlessly at Morgan, who grinned. "We were very persuasive."

"Where's Lassiter?" Shawn pointed at the bed. Vick swallowed.

"Getting a test done."

"What's wrong?" Shawn thought his heart may have lodged in his throat.

"He . . ." Vick shook her head. Finally, slowly, she forced herself to say it. "He may be paralyzed."


	18. Chapter 17: Where The Glare Still Works

A/N: Here you go guys! I just really really _really_ want to get this fic done because I have .EPIC sequel planned . . . I have no idea how it's going to end but I think it's fairly epic.

vampire-act: Sorry, I post no spoilers through PM. :)

UnLove: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I might just have to use that . . .

As usual, all I want to own is one of Morgan's shirts. :)

*********

**Chapter 17: Whereas the Glare Still Works**

Thompson and Lochstoer, when they returned, were surprised that Vick had suddenly multiplied into four more people. Lassiter wasn't with them.

"Where is he?" Vick demanded.

"Right behind us," Lochstoer assured her, looking over at the four newcomers.

"Just ignore them. They'd find out later anyway. What's wrong with him?"

"Mr. Spencer, you aren't supposed to be out of your room." Morgan looked over at Shawn, who was staring at the other doctor.

"Oh. That's who you are." Shawn shrugged. "I'm not walking. Promise."

He earned a glare as Thompson turned back to Vick. "It appears to be a temporary paralysis. A piece of the bullet apparently fragmented off and lodged close to his spine, and the swelling from that put pressure on the nerves. When that happened, the nerves controlling his lower body were cut off. Once the swelling goes down, he should be fine."

Vick dropped back into her chair with a sigh of relief. "So it's a temporary thing?"

"Yes. What we'll do is send one of the physical therapists up here to start stretching out his legs to make sure the muscles don't atrophy, and hope for the best."

They stepped aside as the gurney rolled in and the nurses carefully repositioned Lassiter in the bed. Shawn quickly looked away – it wasn't right to see him like this.

"You okay?" Morgan muttered. Shawn shook his head.

"It's just too weird to . . ."

Morgan just nodded in answer as the doctors and nurses left. Thompson turned around and pointed at Shawn. "You'd better be back in that room in ten minutes, Mr. Spencer."

"Yes, sir." Shawn saluted him. Thompson rolled his eyes and left. "Nazi."

#

_What the hell is on my face?_

_Where the hell am I?_

_Why can't I move?_

_What is that freaking annoying beeping noise?_

_Crap, I'm in a hospital._

_Why am I in a hospital?_

_Was I shot?_

_Crap. I'm never going to live this down. I hope Spencer doesn't find out about this . . . _

_I need to move something. There's something stabbed in my arm . . . if I can feel that I should be able to move _something_ . . . Come on, Carlton . . . _

_Yes! Good work, finger. Now who's here? Um . . . sounds like the Chief . . . oh God. Spencer. _

_Can I go back into my coma now?_

#

Shawn didn't miss a slight twitch from the bed, even in his dazed state. He cocked his head and was about to say something when a voice came from the doorway.

"_Shawn_!" He looked up. Gus stood in the doorway, arms crossed. "You know you aren't supposed to be out of your room!"

"They said it was okay!" Shawn argued.

"You don't need to be down here!"

"Gus, I'm _fine_. I just needed to check on him."

"For what? In case the doctors weren't doing their job?"

"Guys . . . " Morgan was the first to notice a change in the room as his eyes, following the arguing like a tennis match, brushed over the bed.

"You never know. I—"

"Guys . . ."

Vick was leaning over the bed by now.

"You can't do anything to –"

"Mr. Spencer. Mr. Guster. _Shut up_!"

The duo looked over at the bed, where Lassiter was glaring at Shawn angrily. "Lassie! You're awake!"

He tried to say something around the mask. The nurse with Shawn hurried over and carefully slid it down. "No thanks to you, Spencer," Lassiter said weakly, voice breaking a couple times.

"_I'm_ sorry, Lassiter," Gus apologized. "I'll get him back to his room."

"But Gus, I – okay." Shawn reluctantly gave in as Gus and the orderly removed him with a promise to send in Lochstoer. Garcia pushed Morgan closer to the bed.

"Lassiter?" Morgan said with a slight nod. Lassiter weakly returned it.

"Morgan."

"I think we're good, Garcia," Morgan muttered. She nodded and grinned down at Lassiter.

"Get better, Detective," she said cheerfully before wheeling Morgan out.

"How are you feeling, Lassiter?" Vick asked once the room was empty.

"Like hell." Lassiter pressed back against the bed and closed his eyes. "How'd I –"

"You were shot, Carlton."

Dimly he could remember his last few seconds of consciousness as searing pain . . . there was something about torture floating around back there, but it seemed like it had been a lifetime ago. "I thought so . . . I . . ." Things were rushing together at this point – something about a van, and then guns, just memories rushing together for the sole purpose of confusing the hell out of him. They were interrupted by a petite brunette doctor who hurried in, holding a manila file.

"I heard you're awake, Detective," she said cheerily, scanning the chart.

"If you . . . can call it that . . . I guess so."

"How're you feeling?"

"Drugged?"

Lochstoer nodded. "Well . . . I suppose so." She looked back down at the file. "Anything else?"

"I . . . I don't . . ." Lassiter frowned. "I . . . um . . . why can't I feel . . . feel my legs?"

"You're suffering temporary paralysis due to inflammation around your spinal chord."

Lassiter almost felt his chest tighten. "Paral – paralysis?"

"It's temporary," Lochstoer said with a practiced, gentle ease. "With the right physical therapy, it should disappear." Lassiter nodded weakly. "Anything else?"

"I . . . I don't know . . ."

"It's okay," Lochstoer said, writing something down. "You're coming out of a coma so it's normal to be confused."

"I – I'm not confused . . ." Lassiter protested. He felt exhausted, like the last five minutes had been the equivalent of running several marathons involving obstacle courses, and it was becoming even more of a struggle to stay awake.

"Keep telling yourself that." Lochstoer closed the file. "I'm going to send our neurologist in to evaluate you. Is that okay?"

"Sure," Lassiter muttered, trying to stave off his interest in the inside of his eyelids. He failed.

Vick looked worriedly up at Lochstoer as Lassiter seemly passed out again. Lochstoer shook her head. "It's perfectly normal for coma patients to drift in and out of consciousness when they first start coming out of the coma. I would be surprised if he wakes up again today."

"How long will this go on?"

"There's no way to know. It depends on a number of factors. I wouldn't worry about it."

"So what are his chances now?" Vick stepped to the side as Lochstoer placed the BiPAP over Lassiter's face again.

"Better, but I still can't definitively tell you if he'll return to police work. I'll be around if you need me."

"Okay." Vick looked down at her watch. "I need to get back to the department, but . . ."

"I'll keep an eye on him," Lochstoer assured her. Vick nodded and left with a worried glance back at her still detective.

#

Morgan was the first to be released, after only around three days. Garcia hurried back in as he was struggling to pull on his shirt around the splint on his hand.

"And why didn't you call me?" Garcia demanded. Morgan succeeded in getting the shirt down and looked up at her.

"I was going to call you once I was dressed. I still have to sign the papers."

"Did you let _anyone_ know?"

"Hotch knows."

"He's the one who told us!"

"Baby girl, I'm fine." Morgan pushed himself to the edge of the bed. "Okay?"

"You know we aren't leaving yet. You're just being released."

"I know." Morgan pulled the wheelchair over to him with his good hand. Garcia crossed her arms.

"Stop it." She helped him into the chair. "Stop trying to do stuff on your own."

"Are you doing this to tell me how annoying it is?" Morgan asked, grinning. Garcia grinned back.

"Or just 'cause I love you."

"Or that." Morgan chuckled. "I'm fine, okay? But I _will_ be better after a full meal that isn't hospital food."

"Agent Morgan?" A voice asked from the doorway. Harris stepped through with a clipboard. "Good, you're all ready to go. I just need to you sign this and you're good to go." She held it up for him as Morgan skimmed the release papers and signed them.

"Thanks, Dr. Harris," Morgan said, handing her pen back. She handed him a folder.

"I know you know what to do, but these are some PT papers from the physical therapist for your hand, and we wrote out a recommendation for physical therapy for when you're back in Washington. You should be fine, though."

"You ready?" Garcia asked. Morgan nodded.

"I think so."

Garcia mouthed a 'thanks' to Harris and wheeled Morgan into the hallway. When they got to the elevator, Morgan kept her from pressing the button for the lobby.

"You want to go up to neurology again?" She asked. Morgan nodded.

"I wanted to let him know we aren't available to break him out anymore."

"Fair enough." Morgan pressed the button for the 7th floor and the elevator jolted off. As Garcia wheeled him down the hall, she frowned.

"Are you going to ask me to leave again?"

Morgan sighed, knowing that was coming up. "Garcia, you know I trust you. But . . ."

Garcia echoed his sigh. "I just . . ."

"There's some stuff that happened that I'm not sure he'd trust you enough to know. You know I'll tell you everything later anyway." They reached the door. "I'll ask, if it's really worrying you that much, okay?"

"No, it's okay. I just don't want you to feel like you can't –"

"I know _I _can trust you with anything, baby girl."

"As long as we're good, my thunder." Morgan grinned as she pushed him through the door. Shawn looked over, already looking ten times better than he had the last time Morgan had seen him.

"Hey, Morgan."

"You look better."

"I feel better. The drummers've stopped and they're saying I'll be fine. The doctors, not the drummers." Shawn shrugged. "I'm just waiting to get out of here." He scanned the duo. "I guess you just got released?"

"Yeah." There was a long, awkward pause. "Have you remembered . . . ?" Shawn nodded mutely. "How are you feeling?"

"Like hell," Shawn muttered with a quick glance at Garcia. "I just . . ."

"Shawn, Garcia councils the families of homicide victims back in D.C. She'll leave if you ask, but anything you say to _either_ of us is in confidence. You know that."

Shawn nodded. "Okay. I just . . ." He looked out the window. After all, he _had_ gotten Lassiter shot. He'd smarted off, Brossart had gotten pissed, and he'd shot Lassiter. Cut-and-dry. They should just get him for accomplice to attempted murder and a couple hundred cases of interfering in police investigations and let it go already. "I can't believe I actually . . ."

Garcia sat down in one of the chairs, looking back and forth. She hadn't yet heard what had happened – Morgan hadn't told her everything yet – so she wasn't about to interject.

"You didn't get Lassiter shot," Morgan interjected, picking up where Shawn had cut off. "Brossart was in a psychotic break. Even if you _had_ told him the truth off the bat, he probably still would have shot him. There isn't anything either of us could have done."

"But I just feel like –"

"There was _nothing _we could have done to stop it," Morgan repeated. "Brossart made up his mind when he walked in that room and saw that something had changed that he was going to shoot Lassiter. Of all of us, he had the closest connection to his sister's case."

"But if I hadn't tried to help Lassiter –"

"Then something else may have set him off – maybe the fact that you hadn't had a 'vision' about how to get a hold of the security guard information we'd told him to get, or that I was just sitting around doing nothing – or he may have not been set off at all, but in that case you would have never gotten your hands on that one guy's phone. There's no use blaming yourself for something that probably would have happened anyway."

Shawn nodded, still not feeling it. "I guess so."

Morgan leaned forward slightly, wincing as it put pressure on his rib. "Shawn, look at me." He reluctantly did. "People do things that don't make sense. That's all that was – something that didn't make sense."

"But if I hadn't gotten that phone, Lassiter would have been dead before anyone showed up."

"We all may have been dead before anyone showed up, and no one would be any wiser. This _wasn't_ your fault, Shawn."

"You sound like Gus," Shawn muttered with a slight laugh. Morgan rolled his eyes. "Have you given your –"

"That's where I'm headed."

"I haven't either. What are you going to say about –"

"About what?"

Shawn studied Morgan's face. His look said it all. "I have no idea. Must be that concussion coming back."

Morgan grinned. "Take care, Shawn."

"You too, Morgan."

"You know you can call me whenever, right?"

"Yeah. And if you're ever back here, I have a couch."

"Good. I'll try to get back here before we fly back to D.C."

"That'd be good."

"You ready?" Garcia asked quietly. Morgan nodded.

"Yeah."

Garcia stood and looked over Shawn before pulling him into a hug. "I know you don't know me, but call me if you need me too."

"O-okay," Shawn said. She released him, took the handles of Morgan's wheelchair, and went out the door.

"Is there any way I can convince you and Hotch to stop somewhere for _real_ food?" Shawn heard Morgan asked just before they disappeared into the hallway. He turned back to the window just before sensing another person in the doorway.

"Shawn?"

"Jules." Shawn wondered why he hadn't seen her before this – he'd been stuck here for three days, at least, and she'd never once visited him. He turned towards her. "Nice to see you."

There was an awkward pause. "I . . . I'm sorry I haven't been up here."

"It's okay. I was . . ." he chuckled. "I was more worried about you. I mean, with neither Lassiter or myself to keep you busy, I was worried you might have taken up something to keep busy . . . like roller derbying, perhaps?"

Juliet grinned as she walked into the room and took the seat by his bed. "You think I need help to keep busy?"

"I'm just saying that we do a good job of it. We did, at least, occupy your time for the past six days, so I'd say you have time to relax now. That's something that we can't let happen."

Juliet smiled. "It'd be nice, once in a while."

"So . . ." Shawn swallowed. "Have you seen –"

"He's doing fine. The doctors say they're actually surprised at how fast he's recovering. He won't be out of here for at least another two weeks, but he's already tried to get out of bed about three times."

"Good."

"Shawn, I . . ." Juliet looked down at her hands. "I actually came here to . . ."

"Get my statement?"

She looked back up, surprised. "Actually, yes. Now that Agent Morgan should be at the station to give his soon, the Chief wants yours. She knows you might not want to now, but the sooner we have them all the sooner we can prosecute."

Shawn looked back out the window, past a row of pineapples and a couple different flower arrangements sent by friends as get-well gifts. "I don't know, Jules."

"Then we won't worry about it." He looked back over to her as she picked up his hand. "But is there anything you need to talk about?" Shawn sighed. He wasn't sure. There was legitimately a lot he wanted to talk about, but didn't know what he could tell her. "You know you can trust me, Shawn."

He took a deep breath. "Something that's . . . it's been bothering me . . . whenever I'd . . . whenever I'd do something, even if it wasn't anything, it'd get taken out on one of the others."

"What do you mean?"

"Lassiter and Morgan told me to run when the whole . . . whole torture thing started. By the time I got dragged back in, Morgan had been shot, and then when . . . then when Lassiter . . . I was just trying to help him out and stop the bleeding on his arms, but . . . but Brossart just . . ."

"It wasn't your fault—"

"But it didn't matter what I did," Shawn continued, cutting her off. "And then it got reversed – like when they moved us to the cabin, Brossart had me in the back so the others couldn't see if he was doing anything to me, because he knew – and I knew – that they were trying to keep stuff from happening to me. And they shouldn't have – I mean, by then we were all in for it, so it didn't matter if they'd tried to stop him, it wouldn't have worked anyway, Morgan said so himself."

"Shawn, listen to me. There is _nothing_ you could have done."

"But there might have been. If I hadn't gotten that phone, Lassiter wouldn't be in ICU right now – he'd be dead. And what if that _was_ my fault?"

"It is what it is," Juliet said. "It happened and there's no use asking what would have happened if something had been different."

"There just feels like so much more I should have done."

"There isn't any more you could have done. There isn't any more that any of you could have done. You got through, and that's enough."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I do." Shawn looked back out the window. "Shawn, the doctors said that Lassiter lost around forty percent of his entire blood volume."

"And?"

"Do you know why he didn't lose more?"

"No?"

"If you hadn't gotten pressure on that wound when you did, he would have bled out a lot faster."

"So?"

"Whether or not you got him shot, Shawn, you may have saved his life."

Shawn paused, thinking. He just may have. "How was Gus during the whole thing?"

"He was really worried, but apart from that he was fine."

Shawn could sense that there was a hanging awkward question in the air, but wasn't sure if he dared ask it. After all, he didn't know if it was appropriate to ask a junior detective you were immensely attracted to if she had been okay throughout an ordeal where you were being tortured, but he thought he needed to know that she'd been okay . . . "What – what about you?"

"Shawn?"

For a second he wasn't sure he'd actually spoken, but when he looked back up at her she looked confused. That meant he'd probably either said it and she'd not understood what he meant, or he'd made another obscure 80's reference in its place. "How were _you_?" She didn't speak. Shawn reached his other hand over and placed it over the one holding his other. "Jules?"

"I just . . . you're worried about me when the psychological backlash from this—"

"Jules."

"I was . . ." She grit her teeth. "I was _fine_, Shawn."

He gave her his 'whatever-you-say' face, but let it slide. "Of course you were, Jules."

#

Morgan lowered himself into the chair in Vick's office, propping his crutches up against the back. Hotchner sat down in the other chair as Vick leaned forward onto the desk.

They ignored the crowd of officers struggling to impersonate Shawn by pretending not to try and eavesdrop on Morgan's statement through a closed door and slid blinds.

"Are you up for this, Agent Morgan?" Vick asked. Morgan nodded slowly, but said nothing. "Whenever you're ready."

Morgan took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "At approximately ten we left the police department for our hotels . . ."


	19. Chapter 18: Lassie, do you Wii?

A/N: T his is the fun chapter we've probably been wanting for a while. Or, at least, I and my beta have been wanting for a while. This single chapter has been in the planning process since I first put Lassiter, Morgan, and Shawn in a basement together. Therefore – epic.

Disclaimer: Nothing is owned (but I do own _We_. Unfortunately it didn't take off as well as _Wii_, I'm doing a study to see if people like double i's more than e's. . .).

*******

**Chapter 18: When You Combine Lassiter, Morgan, Shawn, and a Wii**

There had already been a threat from Dr. Thompson to handcuff Shawn to the bed after he'd set off the alarm a few hundred times in a single hour. So when Gus finally got Shawn's over-joyous phone call telling him to pick him up, Gus hoped frantically that he wasn't leaving AMA. He hurried to neurology to find Shawn waiting for his change of clothes with the doctor.

"Gus! Buddy! I thought you'd still be asleep!" Shawn accepted the pro-offered clothes happily and started to pull on his jeans.

"Please tell me he isn't leaving AMA," Gus asked worriedly. Thompson shook his head.

"No. He seems to be recovering well enough that there's no reason to keep him here."

"So I can give him this?" Gus held up a styrofoam smoothie cup. Shawn grabbed it before Thompson could reply. The doctor sighed heavily.

"Yes. He's already signed the papers, so as soon as you're ready you can wheel him –"

"Okay!" Shawn jumped to his feet, was met with a wave of dizziness from not having stood on his own for nearly five days, and sat back down. "Ooh. That was weird."

"Wheelchair, Mr. Spencer." Thompson pointed to it. Shawn carefully pulled himself into it with a frown.

"I feel lazy like this," Shawn protested.

"I don't know why it bothers you. It means I get to roll you around."

"Ooh . . . on second thought . . ." Shawn leaned back against the chair and pointed. "Onward, oh-great Wheelchair Man."

Gus rolled his eyes and directed his attention to Thompson. "Thank you, Dr. Thompson."

"Just . . . keep him out of here?" The doctor muttered as Gus wheeled the still grandiosely-pointing faux psychic out.

"I'll do my best."

Once in the elevator, Shawn pressed the button for the second floor. Gus frowned.

"Come on, Gus. I gotta see Lassie again."

Inwardly, Gus was surprised he hadn't been down to see him every day. _Must have been the handcuff threat. _Gus hoped that the doctor's threat hadn't triggered some sort of reaction due to the conditions that Shawn had been in before they'd rescued him, because for the day after there had been some sort of hidden fear in his friend's voice that had worried him. But now, Shawn seemed back to his old self.

The elevator dinged and Gus wheeled him to Lassiter's new room. Now that he was out of the ICU, no nurses tried to stop them from walking in. McNabb, the officer currently assigned to Lassiter's room, grinned as they walked up.

"Hey Shawn. How're you feeling?"

"A lot better, Buzz." Shawn sucked on his smoothie. "I just got released."

"Great! So . . . you're here to see Lassiter, I guess?"

"Yep!"

"That's okay, right?"

"Well . . ." McNabb frowned. "Lassiter did say that he didn't want to see you . . ."

"I never said he'd actually 'see' me," Shawn said perkily. "Or that _you_ saw us."

"Consider us stealth, McNabb," Gus added. McNabb grinned.

"Okay. In you go." He discreetly looked the other way as Gus opened the door. They were met by a burst of voices.

"Dammit, Morgan, that was –"

"You shot yourself, Lassiter, I –"

"I was aiming for that!"

"You should have –"

"Um . . . guys?" Shawn slowly looked into the room. Morgan and Lassiter sheepishly put down whatever they were holding. "Please tell me you're not . . ."

"We have an extra remote?" Morgan held up the white stick. Shawn grinned.

"Gus, you in?"

"I am _not_ playing Wii-Play with you guys."

"Fine." Shawn pouted. "Can I give you a call when –" Gus set his jaw and turned, walking out. "Gus?!"

"Spencer!" Lassiter barked. "I told McNabb that under no circumstances were you to be allowed in this room!"

Shawn pouted. "McNabb has no idea I'm here. It was like this, Lassie: Here was McNabb's radar . . ." He held out his hand.

"Fine."

In all honesty, as Shawn rolled himself forward, he was happy that Lassiter sounded normal again. The detective was still pale, tired-looking, and thinner than usual, but looked a lot better than he had. Morgan tossed Shawn the remote.

"I take it you just got released?" Morgan asked. Shawn nodded.

"Yeah. After Thompson threatened to handcu—well . . . nevermind." He frowned. Morgan and Lassiter half-winced, knowing the implications of his statement. "What're we playing?"

"O'Hara brought over a modified Wii that they seized in a raid," Lassiter said. "Only has Wii-Play and Wii-Sports though, and . . ."

"We both wanted to box, but obviously both Lassiter and I only have one hand to use. So we've been shooting things." Morgan motioned to the screen.

"Seems . . ." Shawn glanced at Lassiter. He shrugged.

"Oddly therapeutic?"

"Only you, Lassie." Shawn grinned. "So who's on?"

#

"Where's Morgan?"

Hotchner looked up from his report. Since he'd gotten the team a few more days in Santa Barbara, he'd decided to spend them writing his report. Thankfully, he could say he was successful in the venture. "Detective O'Hara was driving over to see Lassiter, so Morgan caught a ride with her."

Reid bit the inside of his lip. "Okay."

"He's fine, Reid." Hotchner looked back down at his file.

"He's one of us, Hotch. We _created_ the symptoms for PTSD. If he wants to be fine, he'll look fine. But –"

"Yes, we did write it, Reid." Hotchner cut him off. "But all of us – and I mean, _all_ of us – know the signs, both of PTSD and someone trying to hide it."

Reid stood in a moment of silence, analyzing his supervisor. "Hotch, I hid a—"

"You didn't hide anything from anyone."

Reid sat down, stunned. "Did you or Gideon –"

Hotchner put down his folder. "We know each other too well by now, Reid. Once again, he'll be fine."

"Then what do we . . ."

"We do what we always do. Wait."

"Until he self destructs?"

"Until we have a reason to intervene. As always."

Reid tapped the table nervously. "The last time we tried to do that. With Elle . . ."

"There were extenuating circumstances."

"We should have done more."

"There was nothing more you could have done."

"I could have said something."

"Then that's a mistake you can't afford to make with Morgan." Hotchner said this with such finality that Reid decided it was truly the only thing he could do, and nodded. "And I'd suggest you either use the rest of this time on vacation or on vacation. Am I clear?"

Reid nodded again. "Perfectly."

#

Lassiter gripped the remote, aiming steadily at the screen as ducks flew out of the grass at the bottom. He glanced out of the corner of his eye to spy on the competition. Next to him, both Morgan and Shawn were posed similarly, hunched over the remote with at least one hand holding it steady. He reaffixed his eyes on the screen for the countdown.

_3 . . ._

_ 2 . . ._

_ 1 . . ._

The room filled with clicking as balloons started drifting up from the grass and the trio started firing. When the round had ended, the room fell silent. As they started on the disks that had been Lassiter's earlier downfall, they waited . . . waited . . . _Come on . . ._

And the ducks flew across the screen. Two numbers, one blue and the other red, popped up on the screen.

"Aw, guys," Shawn groaned as he took out a disk with Morgan's mii on it. "One of those was totally mine."

"Should have been faster on the draw, Spencer," Lassiter snapped, taking out one of the orange disks.

"Spoken like a true gun addict," Shawn shot back.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"As long as you aren't shooting at me," Morgan interjected as he fired at one of the disks with Lassiter's mii on it.

"Oh, you wanna play rough?" Lassiter took out one of Morgan's. "We can play rough."

"That's what he said she said," Shawn muttered. Lassiter groaned.

#

"Where's Morgan?" Garcia appeared at the table. Hotchner put down his report for the third time.

"At the hospital. Detective O'Hara gave him a ride."

"And you just let him go?" Garcia put her hands on her hips.

"He's perfectly capable of surviving by himself in a _hospital_, Penelope." She didn't answer. "He needs some room. Now, I'm going to give you the same advice I told Reid – after I fought Strauss to give you time off, I suggest you either use this as vacation or as vacation."

Garcia frowned. "But, I –"

"Go on. It isn't often we _get_ a vacation, trust me."

"Hotch . . . I am not using this for vacation if you aren't."

"I have things I need to do." Hotchner motioned to the file.

"You know as well as I do that once you hit that desk, you'll continue to work on it for hours. Now come on."

"Did Rossi put you up to this?" Hotchner asked with a very slight, amused expression.

"Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't." Garcia hurried over and gently pulled Hotchner to his feet. Granted, Hotchner wasn't really resisting. "Now come on, sir. We were all getting lunch. Come on."

"I really don't –" Garcia put her hands on her hips. "Okay. _Okay_, Garcia. I'm coming." Hotchner brushed her hand off his arm. "Where are we going, anyway?"

#

"Detective Lassiter?"

"Not . . . now . . ." Lassiter leveled his remote to take out a spaceship. "I'm on level 5 . . ." _And I'm winning . . . come on . . . _He took out the spaceship that had just sucked up one of his miis, the little animated figure's arms and legs waving frantically as it fell back into the grass. _Really, they should all duck, not run around like idiots._

"Detective . . ."

"Can you wait just a few . . . we're almost don—" Morgan paused the game, and Lassiter half-swore. "Morgan!" He turned to the suit and lab-coat clad five or so foot tall woman. "_What_?!"

"It's time for your physical therapy."

"I thought we were done with that," Lassiter groaned.

"You still aren't rehabilitated, Detective."

"I'm fine. And I was hardly out for long enough to –"

"Come on, Lassie! It'll be fun! Just think . . . I can –"

"Does it mean he leaves?" Lassiter pointed at Shawn. The doctor nodded.

"Yes."

Morgan climbed to his feet and balanced on his crutches. "Shawn. Come on. We'll see you later, Lassiter." Shawn begrudgingly wheeled himself towards the door.

"Morgan . . . _Morgan_!" Lassiter protested as the duo disappeared. "Damn it . . ."

Morgan and Shawn made their way to the elevator. "So what are you up to for the rest of the day?"

Shawn shrugged. "Not sure yet. I'll probably drop by and give my statement."

He paused. "You doing okay?"

"I'm fine." He glanced up. "What about you?"

"Probably meet the others for lunch. I've never appreciated real food this much." They both laughed.

"I meant how you were doing?"

"I'll get through." Morgan scrutinized the elevator panel. "Hey, you want to join us? I'm sure no one would mind."

Shawn perked. "Sure. Real food sounds great." The elevator opened and they exited. Morgan flicked open his phone.

"Hey, baby girl. You guys doing anything for lunch? Oh. Okay. Mind if Shawn . . . okay. See you in a few." He closed the phone. "They're headed over here now."

"Where're we going?"

Morgan shrugged. "I have no idea."

A black SUV pulled into the pickup area as the duo walked outside (Shawn abandoning the wheelchair before he'd even made it through the automatic doors). The window rolled down to reveal Garcia.

"Hey handsome."

"Who's driving?" Morgan demanded, looking around her as Shawn pulled himself up into the back. "Reid?! They're letting you drive?"

"Surprise?" Reid asked hesitantly. "You coming?"

Morgan shook his head and climbed in behind the driver's seat. "Not sure I want to now. But where're we going?"

"Not entirely sure. I'm just following them." Reid pointed to a second SUV that was sitting nearby.

Morgan chuckled and shook his head.

"Are you usually just –"

"Following them around?" Reid cut off Shawn's question.

"Yeah."

"Just about." Morgan nodded.

#

Almost done, guys! I saved the reviewer thanks for last :).

the-vampire-act: Motorcycle won't be a key word, but neuromuscular blocking agents may be. Google them. Nasty stuff.

Screennames: Epic sequel all right. Glad to know you're still out there.

UnLove: I know, I really wish I was Morgan's baby girl too. You aren't alone there, promise.

BrokenAngel, silentlyloud, animaluvr: Thanks guys! Have cookies. :]

Trying to finish this thru the end of the week. We'll see how this works.


	20. Chapter 19: Beginning of a Beginning

A/N: One more chapter after this!!! AHHH! I feel . . . accomplished?

Sequel coming soon, but don't hold me to a beginning date.  
And as always, I own nothing except a can of pineapple in the fridge.

#

**Chapter 19: Beginning of a Beginning**

"Guuuuus!"

"Why do we need to go to the airfield, Shawn?"

"Just drive, Gus!"

"I want to know what's going on!"

"You usually don't."

"That's because it's _usually_ illegal!"

"Fine. We're going UFO hunting, dude!"

Gus slammed on the breaks at a red light. Shawn groaned.

"Shawn, we said _no cases_! You've only been out of the hospital for _two days_. No cases!"

"Fine!" The light turned green and Gus accelerated. "I wanted to say goodbye to Morgan."

"You could have just said that." Gus frowned, turning into the airfield parking lot. Shawn bounded out before the car had hardly stopped. Juliet and Chief Vick were walking out with the agents towards a parked jet. Shawn was halfway across the strip before Gus had even locked the car.

"Shawn?" Juliet shaded her eyes. Shawn slid to a stop in front of them.

"Just wanted to come and say bye, guys," he piped cheerily. Rossi groaned and climbed into the plane.

"You didn't have to do that," Reid said. Shawn grinned as Gus caught up to him.

"No, I know. I just wanted to."

"Thanks for keeping an eye on Morgan," Garcia said.

"Thanks for lending him to me," Shawn answered. Morgan rolled his eyes.

"Take your time." Hotchner nodded to Vick and Juliet and climbed into the plane.

"Keep us updated on Detective Lassiter?" JJ asked. Shawn nodded.

"Absolutely. I can tell you that right now he's already threatened to kill me again, so he's back to his old self." Shawn grinned widely. They shook their heads.

"Shawn, we should let them get back." Gus nodded to Morgan. "Thanks for keeping an eye on him."

"I'm surprised you still have both of yours."

"Sometimes I wonder."

"Bye guys." Reid waved before he climbed back on the plane. Shawn and Gus waved back. Prentiss and JJ followed him. Morgan looked back at Shawn.

"Take care, Shawn."

"You too, Morgan." Shawn shook the proffered hand. "If you're ever back in the area, just give me a call."

"Same here." Morgan grinned. Garcia pulled him into a hug. Shawn looked shocked for half a second again.

"Take care of yourself," Garcia scolded. Shawn grinned.

"Absolutely. Keep him out of trouble."

"I think I need to keep _her_ out of trouble." Morgan gestured broadly at Garcia. She grinned.

"It'd take more eyes than you have, hot stuff. Come on, before they leave us here." Morgan rolled his eyes at Shawn as he crutched off towards the plane and limped up the steps. Turning back, he waved again before disappearing into the plane, and the door closed.

"Okay, Gus, we're good," Shawn turned to him, beaming.

"Gentlemen," Vick said, motioning to the side of the runway. "So they can take off."

They started towards the parking lot. Juliet looked over at Shawn.

"You came all the way out here just to say goodbye?"

Shawn shrugged. "Well, I owe him."

The trio shared a look. _After everything I've done for him . . ._ Gus thought. _And he doesn't owe _me_? What really happened over those three days?_

#

Morgan stretched his leg out on the couch as the plane taxied down the runway. As it took off, he looked back out the window. Across the aisle from him, JJ, Prentiss, and Reid were setting down for a long card game. Rossi and Hotchner had taken their usual spots up by the front of the plane. Morgan stretched out and dug out his headphones. Closing his eyes, he sighed and leaned back against the wall behind him. The BAU jet had never felt so comfortable.

"Think he's okay?" JJ finished dealing and picked up her hand. Reid shrugged.

"I think he will be."

Prentiss frowned as she examined her hand. "What do we do if he isn't?"

"Whatever we can, I guess."

Rossi looked across the aisle towards Hotchner, who was busy examining a file. "I thought you'd finished your report back in Santa Barbara."

"I did." Hotchner turned a page. "That isn't what I'm looking over."

"Morgan's statement?"

"The written one." Hotchner frowned slightly. "Just . . ."

"Strauss?"

Hotchner shrugged. "I refused to call her when Morgan first went missing. That's going to come back."

"I doubt she'll come down on you as hard as you think she will." Hotchner glared back down at the file. "How do you think he'll hold up?"

"Morgan?" Rossi nodded. "He'll be fine over time."

Rossi nodded. "I thought so."

They were silent for a little while. Finally, Hotchner closed the file. "It's still bothering me that they went after Morgan and Spencer."

Rossi paused, hand holding a page half turned. "What do you mean?"

"Lassiter made sense." Hotchner set the file aside. "And for them to have gone after one of us makes sense from a protection standpoint. But if they continued with that trend they should have gone after one of us. " He motioned between himself and Rossi. "And Spencer . . . that was such a deviation from the profile that it doesn't even make sense." He shook his head.

"Aaron, they said that they had scoped us out. Perhaps you or I wouldn't have been a challenge." Rossi finally turned the page fully, and grinned. "Or, at least, they didn't see us as one."

Hotchner shrugged. "That leaves Spencer."

Rossi shook his head in reply. "I think that one we can't explain. Maybe the name. Maybe it was the threat. I don't know. And the one person that could fully explain it is dead." Hotchner answered him with silence. "Aaron. We got them back. That's what matters."

Hotchner let himself nod, glancing down at another file. It was a new case that had come in while they were in Santa Barbara, and he'd had them fax it over to the jet for review. But for once he wasn't sure he wanted to open it. Instead, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

Across the aisle, Rossi returned his attention to his book – he'd almost forgotten what he was reading – and let his mind wander far from the case, his last statement ringing in his ears. _We got them back. We found them. That's all that matters._

But as usually happened, a small voice answered him from the back of his mind: _Is it?_

#

"Carlton?"

Lassiter groaned, his eyes still closed. "Chief?"

Vick walked in and he heard a scrape as a chair slid across the floor. "How are you feeling?"

"PT sucks," he answered simply. In fact, he'd had no idea that doing even _half_ the things that insane, sadistic, short, female psychopath put him through during any of their sessions could hurt so damned much. He got no response, and cracked his eyes open. "What do you need?"

Vick shook her head. "Just to check on you."

Lassiter groaned again. "Statement?"

She shook her head again. "No. Just to check on you."

"I'm fine." In all honesty, Lassiter would _never_ admit to the Chief that he was having problems sleeping, or that even _knowing_ Brossart was dead didn't stop him from having nightmares of, of all things, Shawn or Morgan dying in that cabin, and having to see the FBI agents and O'Hara's and Vick's faces when they found their bodies . . . Especially O'Hara's . . .

"Are you sure?" Vick asked after a short pause.

Lassiter nodded. "Yeah."

They were silent for a while. Vick finally spoke again. "I'm requiring Mr. Spencer to attend several counseling sessions before allowing him to work any more cases for the department."

"Is that your subtle way of getting rid of him?" Lassiter asked, somewhat hopefully. Vick grinned.

"No. But it is my subtle way of mandating the same for you."

Lassiter groaned once again. It seemed to be a common response for him nowadays. "Chief, I –"

"Lassiter." The tone in her voice cracked down on him like the gunshot that had landed him here in the first place. Noticing the wince that ran through him, and that one hand instinctively flew to cover his wound, Vick immediately softened it. "It's for your own good. I wouldn't make you do it otherwise."

Lassiter swallowed, letting his hand slip to his side. "Okay. But only as long as Spencer and I have different sessions."

Vick hid a small smile. "I wasn't _going_ to make you go to the same ones." She looked down at her hands. "However, as you know, I _am_ going to need to take your statement at some point."

Rather than answer it with a groan, Lassiter nodded. "I know." He paused, and there was silence again. "How does the case look?"

"One of the guys – Allan – turned state's evidence, as did a Wayne Rosen." Lassiter cocked his head. He remembered Allan, but not anyone referred to as Wayne, although he thought he might have heard the name mentioned. Vick caught his look and pieced it together. "Wayne was one of Agent Morgan's attackers. He claimed to only have seen you in the van, and only once in the basement when he helped put you three in there." Lassiter nodded, things slightly clearer now. "Carlton, O'Hara, Guster, and Spencer are outside and would like to see you." He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the last two. "I can tell them no, but—"

"No, we're good." Lassiter forced himself to say. Vick nodded.

"I'll send them in." She stood to leave. "Call me if you need anything?"

"Absolutely." Lassiter weighed his options as he heard the other three clatter into the room – O'Hara in those obnoxious and unpractical heels, Gus in some sort of hard-soled dress shoe, and Shawn padding along in sneakers. He could always play dead – pushing out of his mind how close he'd actually come to _being_ dead – or pretend to be sleeping, or just kick them out. With a heavy sigh, he decided to tolerate Spencer and the questions he was sure the psychic had for him.

"Lassie!" Shawn waited until he'd reached the side of the bed to call him. Lassiter opened his eyes.

"Spencer. What a nice surprise," Lassiter said flatly.

"We were coming back from the airfield," Juliet explained. "The Chief and I were stopping by and Gus and Shawn wanted to do the same." Lassiter shrugged. "How're you feeling?"

"Better." He winced as he tried to shift and felt like he pulled at his wound. He'd hoped they'd missed it, but was wrong.

"Lassie?"

"Lassiter?"

"Carlton?"

"I'm fine." He caught his breath. "Just . . . settled wrong, that's all." They were staring at him dubiously. "I'm _fine_," he snapped.

"Just checking." Juliet held her hands up. "I'm glad to see you're almost back to normal, Lassiter."

"Shawn, I need to get back to work soon," Gus muttered. Shawn nodded.

"Gus, Jules, can I have some more bonding time with Lassie?" Shawn draped his arm around the detective's shoulders, who quickly threw it off. The other two exchanged a glance, nodded, and left.

"And why in the name of sweet justice would I want to bond with _you_?" Lassiter snapped, focusing on Shawn as he sank into Vick's vacated seat.

"Just got a question, Carlypants." Lassiter rolled his eyes. "So, we were just kidnapped and all, right?"

"Is there a point, Spencer?"

"Well, I mean, where does this leave us?"

"I'm not following."

"Are we going to treat each other differently?"

Lassiter stopped, assessed his options (which took about a second) and answered. "If you're asking if I'm going to accept your asinine obstruction of police work with your psychic mumbo-jumbo –"

"Fully understand, Lassie-face," Shawn replied with a grin that seemed wider than his face. "I'll see you later."

"You most certainly will not, if I have to get a restraining order on this hospital room."

Shawn pouted. "Fine. But you better get better soon."

"Thank you, Spencer." Lassiter kicked himself for the reply that shot out before he had a chance to stop it. "Now remove yourself from this room."

"Sure thing, Lassie-face." Shawn saluted and retreated out of the room. Lassiter grimaced. He'd be back before he got released. Guaranteed.

#

Shawn had Gus – against the latter's better judgment – drop him off at the Psych office. As he pulled off crime scene tape from the front door, he frowned. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what the inside looked like.

He stepped in, and let a small shudder run through him at the wrecked office. Shawn bent down and pinched a small amount of potting soil from the ground by his desk. Standing up, he looked down at his wrecked desk.

"I should get started," he said to himself, not expecting a reply. That's why the one that sounded, which disturbingly sounded a lot like his father, sent him spinning towards the back door.

"Shawn!" Henry stepped out (letting Shawn know he wasn't crazy), holding a broom and dustpan. "What're you doing here?!"

"Dad?" Shawn squinted and cocked his head to the side. "_I_ work here. In fact, unless Gus decided to hire a _new_ psychic investigator, I should be asking you what _you're_ doing here, huh?"

Henry glanced down at the broom. "I was coming to take back this broom you stole from me four years ago," he covered quickly.

"Were you?"

"Yeah, Shawn. It's a good broom."

"Well, I hope you don't mind if I keep it for a little while so I can clean this stuff up, do you?"

Henry shrugged. "I think I can help you out with that. Start working on your desk."

Shawn grinned as Henry walked forward and started sweeping up the potting soil in front of his desk. Sitting down, he started to remove broken knickknacks and a few office trays, and resolved to never let his father know just how much he appreciated this small gesture. After all, it'd just go to his head.

#

"You sure you'll be okay?"

Morgan groaned. "Baby girl, I'll –" Garcia was out of her car before Morgan had a chance to settle himself up on his crutches, and was pulling his bag out of her trunk. "Really. I'm fine."

"I'm at least getting you to the door, handsome," Garcia insisted. Morgan rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that!" She started towards his door as he – what exactly is it called? "Crutched?" – after her. She unlocked the door and quickly kept his dog from speeding out. "Where do you want these?"

"Just drop them on the floor." Morgan stopped to ruffle Clooney's ears. "I'll get them later."

"Takeout?" Garcia asked, ignoring his instructions and starting up the stairs.

"You don't need to stick around, Garcia," Morgan repeated.

"I'm not planning on sticking around that long," Garcia yelled down, a _thump_ accompanying it, and steps on the stairs announcing her return. "Just long enough to make sure you're going to be okay. Now sit yourself down on that couch."

Morgan sighed and dropped down, stretching his leg out. Clooney licked his hand, wagging his tail. "No, I know. There's no use arguing with her when she's like this." Clooney licked his hand again, almost in agreement. Morgan laughed, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

#

Just one more! Just one more!

tbsava: hope this was fast enough for you.

vampire-act: . . . have you ever seen a movie called _Murder by Death_?

animal: Expect this and the very last chapter today!


	21. Chapter 20:Or, the Epilogue

A/N: And here is the end. _Ad nauseam_, I own nothing.

#

**Chapter 20: Or, What Would Otherwise be Known as an Epilogue**

~One Month Later~

Gus was concerned.

He'd gotten a frantic phone call from Shawn, begging him to get to the hospital as quickly as he could. Had the phone call _not_ come from Shawn, he probably wouldn't have been able to drive fast enough to make it there from Central Coast. They'd started picking up cases again the week before, and since Shawn was left to his own devices to investigate Gus never knew what situation he may have found himself or someone else in. As it was, he pulled into the parking lot at Santa Barbara General at a decent clip, pulling the Echo into a parking spot and hurrying to where he could see Shawn by the doors.

"Shawn! What's wrong?"

"Lassie's getting released today!" Shawn said, bouncing up and down on his heels.

Granted, Shawn had always been slightly (and creepily, if you asked Gus) obsessed with the head detective, to the point where Shawn (whom Gus had hardly known to pick up any cleaning implement in his life) had somehow gotten himself and Juliet into Lassiter's house the week before to clean it up. Gus knew about this from at least an hour spent listening to Shawn complain about how annoying fingerprint dust was to get off countertops. But this was ridiculous.

"You called me out of work to let me know that Lassiter's walking out of the hospital?" Gus rolled his eyes.

"Well, yeah!" Shawn hadn't stopped bouncing. Gus firmly put his hands on Shawn's shoulders and pressed his heels into the ground. "Fine. I thought you'd like to see Santa Barbara's finest trot out of here."

"I have to admit, I do miss seeing Lassiter around the department." Gus nodded. "But you scared the hell out of me, Shawn! I thought you'd gotten yourself back _in_ the hospital!"

"I've been really careful, Gus," Shawn assured him. "Promise." He leaned back on Vick's unmarked sedan. "Ooh! There he is!" Shawn immediately bolted upright and pointed, waving frantically. Gus looked over at the doors to see Vick accompanying a nurse pushing Lassiter, who was busy complaining about his confinement to a wheelchair. As soon as he saw Shawn, he made an audible groan.

"Spencer! What the hell are you doing here?"

"Lassie-face!" Shawn piped cheerfully. "So glad to see you're out! So what's the news? When ya gonna be back bustin' the bad guys?" Lassiter glared at him as Vick thanked the nurse, who quickly retreated into the hospital. "You _are_ coming back, right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Lassiter growled, lowering himself into the passenger seat of the sedan. "Please tell me you're asking because if _I'm_ coming back, _you_ aren't."

"Don't be silly. Of course I'm coming back!" Shawn closed the door for him as Vick climbed into the driver's seat, forcibly feigning annoyance. "Ooh, I brought you something." Shawn picked up the Styrofoam cup with "Smoothie-World" printed on the side in bright orange letters, the 't' classily made into a palm tree. "Should be okay by now."

"What _is_ it?" Lassiter mumbled, already knowing what was in the cup even as he accepted it.

"Pineapple smoothie!" Shawn was bouncing again, and Gus forcibly pressed him into the concrete. "Guuus!"

"I think we've wasted enough of Lassiter's time. I'm going back to work." Gus nodded to the detective and Vick, and stalked back towards the car. Once out of earshot, Shawn waved to Vick and Lassiter.

"See you later, buddy."

"If you ever call me that, Spencer, I will shoot you." Lassiter pointed threateningly at him. Shawn grinned broadly.

"Okay. Anytime!" He waved as Vick pulled out of the pickup lane and started back towards his bike. Things should be, once again, getting back to normal.

#

~About Two Weeks After That~

Reid stepped out of the elevator with his coffee, walking towards the glass doors as usual. He had to admit, despite the fact that he'd seen Morgan at least four times a week in the past month, not having him around to torment him on cases was a little dull. So when he spotted a familiar head bent over a far-too-long-empty desk, he picked up his pace.

"Morgan?"

Morgan's head shot up. "Mornin', Reid."

"You aren't supposed to be back for at least another month!" Reid dropped his bag onto his desk. Morgan shrugged in answer. Reid thought he looked more tired than usual and potentially worn a little ragged, but otherwise fairly normal. Therefore, he was immediately suspicious. "You cleared for the field? Did you tell anyone you were coming back so early?"

"Hotch cleared me. For the desk, not the field." Morgan pointed at the crutches still leaning against his desk. "However, I was planning on surprising everyone else, but I'm sure Rossi knows." As if he'd heard Morgan's statement, Rossi passed through the doors towards his office, nodded nonchalantly at the duo, and continued up the stairs.

"Not even Garcia?"

Morgan shook his head. "Nope."

"Does Emily know?"

"You know she's always here before you." Again, almost as if Shawn's "psychic"-ness had rubbed off on the team, Prentiss dropped Morgan's coffee mug back on his desk.

"That good enough, gimpy?" she asked, sitting down at her desk with her own mug. Morgan sniffed it.

"Smells good enough."

Garcia hurried towards the catwalk, ignoring Reid's attempts to get her attention with a muttered "gotta talk to Hotch." Reid caught a glimpse of a grin crossing Morgan's face as he kept his head down.

"Good morning, baby girl," he said as she started to climb the catwalk.

Almost by second nature, Garcia replied without looking. "I'll show you a good morning, hot st—MORGAN!" She spun, hands immediately on her hips and quest for Hotchner's office forgotten. "Are you allowed to be at that desk?"

"Yup." Morgan grinned. "And I get to be spending a lot of time with you until I can get around without those."

"Oh boy," Prentiss muttered, taking a sip of her coffee. "This is gonna make for some interesting phone calls."

"Should we put a video monitor in her office?" Reid muttered, leaning forward. Prentiss shrugged.

"I need you guys in the briefing room." JJ magically appeared behind them. "We've got a nice one." Looking down, she grinned. "Welcome back, Morgan."

"Good to be back." He pulled himself onto his crutches and followed them up the catwalk steps. "Can't wait until I can kick down doors again, though."

#

~About Six Months Later~

Lassiter adjusted his jacket before setting his shoulders and walking towards the doors of the police station. He felt like he was going home – he'd been cleared for the desk three weeks ago, but forcibly kept out of the office by Vick, and then cleared for the field just two days before. He was back, and by God SBPD Head Detective Carlton Lassiter was dead-set on getting straight back on the job.

He wasn't sure if Vick had informed anyone that he was coming back today, but was sure O'Hara hadn't been able to keep it quiet. His suspicions were confirmed as soon as he stepped through the door. McNabb appeared to have been waiting for him, and held out a large cup as he approached.

"I got your coffee, sir."

Lassiter addressed him with the look of a confused, venomous lion. He knew lions weren't venomous, but it was the best way to describe the look. "Did I ask you for coffee?"

"Uh . . . no sir . . ." McNabb stumbled. "But I figured that as soon as you got back you'd tell me to get you some anyway, so I thought I'd just . . ."

Lassiter nodded slightly before starting off towards what was still _his_ desk. "Good work, McNabb."

"I – um, thanks, sir." McNabb trotted after him. "Um, sir. I think before you get back there I should –"

"I'm fine, McNabb. I –" Lassiter stopped dead as he rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of movement by his desk.

_Someone had the audacity to touch my desk._

_I will find this person and kill them personally._

Although it didn't take a wild guess – or a psychic – to know who had done it.

Sitting on top of his desk was one of the largest pineapples he'd ever seen, topped with a bright, blue bow and surrounded by a gold Burger King crown. Behind his desk, on the wall, was a large, hand-painted banner reading _The King Returns!!!_ His chair, meanwhile, was covered in what looked like an oversized, royal-blue futon cover sporting a red velvet Christmas-like bow on top.

It was difficult, but he managed not to break into laughter. He substituted it instead for his typical response.

"SPENCER! You had better clean this up!" Running feet announced Shawn's departure out towards the door as Lassiter spun. "SPENCER!" His quarry having disappeared into the parking lot, Lassiter focused on the next target. "McNabb!"

"I didn't know he was doing anything, sir," McNabb immediately covered. Lassiter shook his head.

"That wasn't what I was going to ask." He pointed. "Clean it up."

"Yes, sir."

As soon as he was sure no one was looking, Lassiter shook his head. Despite the fact that he would have _killed_ himself a year ago to admit it, it needed admitting.

_Things are back to normal._

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It's been a long journey, guys! Thanks to all my wonderful reviewers and adders and such. :) Go enjoy your pineapple-flavored Garcia cookies and wait for more goodness.


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